


Quaerite et Invenite (seek and ye shall find)

by crumbcrash2000



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bisexual Tony Stark, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mental Breakdown, No Spoilers, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Slow Build, Steve Rogers Feels, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-01-24 15:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18574699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crumbcrash2000/pseuds/crumbcrash2000
Summary: [begins right after Infinity War; Endgame AU; original take; CONFIRMED: NO SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE; full work nearly complete :)]"It’s the end of the world, but the Captain is not done.He takes one moment, there beside Vision’s body, then he stands. He takes stock of the grieving around him. Romanoff. Rhodes. Banner. Okoye. The survivors bear no significant injuries that he can see. Nearby, the raccoon is weeping. The Captain reaches down, grasps a paw, pulls him to his feet. No one quits today. "[Read More...]





	1. Devastation

_devastation_

/ˌdɛvəˈsteɪʃn/

NOUN

_1\. great destruction or damage._

_2\. severe and overwhelming shock or grief._

 

 

*** 

 

 

It’s the end of the world, but the Captain is not done.

  
He takes one moment, there beside Vision’s body, then he stands. He takes stock of the grieving around him. Romanoff. Rhodes. Banner. Okoye. The survivors bear no significant injuries that he can see. Nearby, the raccoon is weeping. The Captain reaches down, grasps a paw, pulls him to his feet. No one quits today.

Thor is shaking, slow. Banner and Romanoff. Okoye receives a summons on her wrist. Back to the Palace. The Captain nods. They walk. They are slow. The battlefield is wide. Empty.

They go to Shuri, her head bandaged. Wakanda has their leader. The Captain wonders how much she will hate the job. The Queen’s grief is compressed, flashes diamond-bright, but she is busy trespassing, invading, saving what’s left of the world. Romanoff and Banner sit Thor in a chair and step up, fingers tapping, minds assessing. Half the world’s population has vanished, Shuri says, but the Captain has no time. Crises bloom faster than despair. Thor’s not speaking.

Across a wide world, planes seek guidance; missiles seek targets; the people need help. Bring in FRIDAY, the Captain orders. The AI is already busy, has already averted the worst she could reach. Together, the team makes a pattern. Find problem; ease problem. The Captain speaks. Dozens, hundreds, thousands.

Hours.

Days.

The problems ease. Sleep, orders the Queen. The Captain lies where they put him, stares at the ceiling until they get him. More team. Thor’s not eating. The Captain speaks, and problems ease. His throat bleeds, but the serum. Problems ease. He stares, where they put him. They get him. He speaks.

FRIDAY speaks. Approach, space. Alert. The Queen stands firm, demands. Response. The Captain listens. The ship is damaged, injuries, problems. The Captain hears. The team hears. The Queen hears. Bad joke. Inappropriate. The Captain sighs. The team cheers. The Captain leaves the room. The team leaves the room. The team goes to the ship. The Captain goes to the room, to the place he stares at the ceiling.

Six days after the world ends, Steve Rogers begins to cry.

 

***

 

If ships could limp, this one would be hobbling, Tony thought as the Benatar tilted towards the landing zone. He could see figures spilling out of a nearby building, but he didn’t dare let himself look at their faces. Not yet. Nebula was frowning beside him, her concentration fully locked on fighting the ship into a sensible landing, and without her, he would have died on Titan with everyone else. Tony owed her these last moments of support.

The maimed ship tried to spin away one last time, but a snarl from Nebula saw it dropping instead to the Earth with an unholy clanking noise. Tony thought he might be feeling relief, but it was currently manifesting as light-headedness in a way that was really annoying, so he tried to ignore it and get out of his flight chair without needing help. He had lost significant amounts of blood on Titan before Nebula had finished patching him up, and apparently the half of Star-Lord that was human was not the digestive half because the rations they’d found onboard would have given toxic goop a bad name. The hunger was getting to Tony more than anything. A few times, in his dizzier moments, he’d even caught Nebula looking at him with a scowling sort of concern, but he knew a few square meals and a good night’s sleep would be enough to have him back on his feet. Would have to be enough. Too much work to do.

The ship’s ramp was lowering, and Tony squinted against the harsh noon sunlight. Time to find out who else he’d lost. It felt like the worst kind of Christmas, he could almost laugh. Then the ramp hit the ground and the gloomy ship was overrun - was that a raccoon? - and suddenly Rhodey - Jesus, Rhodey - was there and alive and wrapping his arms around Tony and there too was Nat and Bruce and Clint and then, somehow, Tony was laughing even as he was crying because out there on Titan he’d had dreams where he came home to find nothing but dust and instead somehow, even now, he had people.

But it was still the end of the world.

“A-all of them?” Further into the ship, the raccoon was staring up at Nebula, its ears and tail drooping towards heartbreak. The android gave a reluctant nod and the small creature backed away with a sob, holding out its paws in such a human gesture that Tony could not see it as an animal anymore; just another broken heart.

Nebula caught Tony looking and raised her chin haughtily, as if to deny her own sorrow. “Rocket is one of the Guardians, like Gamora and Quill,” the android explained. Then she stared at the raccoon, as if seeing him for the first time. “I suppose he is now the last.” Rocket moaned softly, his anguish at the news wrenching to witness.

“Maybe not,” Tony blurted out, and it was like everyone in the ship took their first deep breath in six days.

“Tony,” Nat whispered, eager, desperate, “what are you saying?”

He paused. He’d meant to lead up to this. Take them through the steps so they’d all see it this time. So they’d all agree. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything yet. But then… Tony had always had this sense, always known when the math would run true, long before any computer could catch up. Like he could taste the truth of it. Hear it sing to him. It was the most beautiful sound in the universe. And now he felt it simmer up inside of him again, the one taut thread of possibility keeping him sane. To hell with it.

“Our fight isn’t over,” Tony said. He looked around, meeting everyone’s eyes, willing them to believe. “There is still a way to win.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Rhodey asked, his eyes pleading.

Tony found himself grinning, and he slung his arm over his best friend’s shoulders, enjoying the insane reality that meant he still got to do that and ignoring the sharp pull the gesture made on his alien-stitched wounds. “A wizard told me,” and Tony laughed for a second time in six days at the expression on Rhodey’s face, because there he could see the usual exasperation mixed with love but he also saw the beginnings of hope. The same fragile hope that now shone from the faces of Nat and Clint and Bruce. Even Nebula.

Not so much the raccoon. “Listen, buddy, if you’re messin’ with us, I’m gonna take this entire ship by the pointy end and shove it so far up your-”

Despite the nova of pain in his side, Tony knelt down to eye level, cutting off Rocket’s threats. “Hi, we haven’t officially met. I’m Tony Stark, billionaire, Avenger, fiancé, genius. And I’m also the man who’s going to save half the universe. Wanna help?”

The raccoon peered suspiciously at him. “You sure look like you need my help. But why should I believe you?”

Tony shrugged. “I met your fellow Guardians on Titan. Quill, Mantis and Drax. They fought well.”

“I bet they really impressed you, huh genius?”

“Oh no, they were complete idiots,” Tony said, and Rocket scoffed to hide a smile. “But we almost had Thanos beat.” Tony’s gaze flicked over to Nebula who stared back at him, a defensive hunch to her shoulders. “Next time. We’ll end him.”

“And Gamora?” the android asked, her tone carefully neutral.

Tony hesitated. “I’m not sure. But I promise I’ll try.”

Nebula tilted her head to one side, considering. “Regardless. I will help.”

“Thanks,” Tony said. “And, you know. For saving my life.” On Titan and after, any hint of sentiment had earned him a warning look or worse from the android, but she accepted his words now with a nod.

Tony turned to find himself under sharp-eyed scrutiny from Rocket, but the raccoon merely shrugged. “I guess I have some time to waste. Lead on, fancy genius.”

“Uh, that is _so_ not what I said,” Tony muttered as he heaved himself to his feet, but from the way Rhodey was grinning at him Tony knew that one wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Clint and Natasha led them all down the ramp and into the bright sunlight. There, Tony was delighted to find Shuri accompanied by the Dora Milaje, although it pained him to guess what that meant for her mother and brother.

“King of the North,” Shuri greeted him. The memory of the first time she’d called him that made Tony smile. But it also felt so very long ago.

“Queen of Wakanda,” he said softly, seriously, and the kid shut her eyes as if she had hoped to forget. Goddamn, he couldn’t not tell her either.

“Shuri, this isn’t over,” Tony said. “There may be a way to undo all of this.”

The young Queen stared at him; again he watched the spark of hope return life to a haunted face. His friends were so willing to believe. He hadn’t expected it. Beside the Queen, Okoye was frowning, and Tony prepared himself to explain.

“The pilot mentioned an injury,” the General said instead. She was staring at the hole in his side, the source of the pain Tony kept losing track of, and which turned out to be bleeding again.

“About that,” Tony said, and then the ground was on his face and Rhodey was shouting loud words in his ear but it was too late, he was already crumbling, and he felt himself swoop one full circle and lift away into the dark place again.

 

***

 

It’s quiet in the lab. That’s what he notices first, when he wakes. Quiet, and calm. Not his lab. Reality arrives. Shuri. Of course. Not like the kid to miss a chance to make fun of him. He honestly fears the day she teams up with P-

Oh.

He opens his eyes enough for others to see. Rhodey is leaning over him. He looks exhausted. Terrible. Beautiful. His friend.

“You with us, Tones?” Rhodey is asking.

“Always,” he says, or he tries to say, but the word turns itself into a cough, which is just rude. But not painful. He is empty of pain. Good. When Tony can see again, Rhodey is holding a glass of water. Another set of hands is helping him sit up. Bruce. Friend.

He drinks the water without coughing. More good. Then they help him lie down again. Less good. Not… time.

“You had us worried there, Tony,” Bruce says quietly. “But you’re gonna be okay. Just rest.”

“Rest,” Rhodey echoes.

He wants to joke. Make them smile. Thanos dropped a moon on me, he wants to say. I went into space and everyone I met was stupid. The wizard had a magic cape, and it died when he died. Died for me. They were dead now. He was dead.

“No other way,” he says. It’s a prayer he doesn’t understand, but it’s all he has left.

He sleeps.

 

***

 

The next time he woke, he sat up on his own, so suddenly it startled Rhodey onto his feet.

“Jeez, Tony,” his friend complained. “Give me a heads up or something before you do that Nosferatu shit, maybe?”

Tony coughed once, experimentally. “As I recall, I told you not to watch that movie.” His voice was croaky but functional, and brought a smile to Rhodey’s face.

“Those fingernails, man,” Rhodey said, and shook his head. “Heebies for days.”

Tony checked his own hands; no discernible growth. But he asked. “How long was I out?”

“A full day and a half,” came an answer from across the lab. Shuri was sitting at a large and complicated-looking interface, her rapid movements suggesting she was busy. “Which is almost insulting, given how good I am at fixing you white boys. There were a couple times you tried to die on me.” She paused long enough to glance over her shoulder. “Don’t try it again.”

“Roger that, Khaleesi,” Tony said, then winced. The silly nickname he’d used to call her was no longer appropriate for the reigning Queen of Wakanda.

Yet the kid tossed him a smile regardless, and next thing his bed was folding itself neatly upward into a semi-reclined chair. Show-off. “You stay put until I get over there,” Shuri ordered. “I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Tony held up his hands in surrender and settled back in the chair. Rhodey sat back down on a nearby stool, and they looked at each other.  
A long moment passed.

“Should I ask or will you tell me?” Tony said quietly.

Rhodey took one long breath and put his hand on Tony’s arm, and he knew. But his friend confirmed it anyway. “Pepper’s gone. I’m so sorry, Tony.”  
It was fair. To be sorry, he meant. He was sorry too, he thought. Somewhere. “And Happy?”

His friend just shook his head, watching him worriedly, but Rhodey didn’t understand. His list of losses couldn’t hurt him; with every name, his list of reasons for carrying on grew longer.

“Take me through it, Rhodey,” Tony requested. “What happened after I left?”

“Bruce called Steve, who called me,” Rhodey said. “Wanda and Vision were in Scotland, the others got them out but not before Vision was injured. Some sort of energy disruption, he couldn’t heal himself, took him out of the game. He suggested destroying the Mind Stone right away, but Steve said no, got us to Wakanda instead. Shuri tried rewiring Vision so we could take out the Stone without killing him, but next thing an alien army was on our doorstep. Thor showed up with some friends, helped even the score but it was still heading south. In the end, we ran out of time.”

“Thanos?” Tony asked. Rhodey nodded.

“Showed up, headed straight for Vision so Wanda… Wanda took him out.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered, struggling to imagine such a hideous end for the young couple.

“Did no good anyway; Thanos reversed it somehow, made like it never happened. Bruce said you’d gone after the Time Stone?”

The gem Strange had sworn to protect. The gem he’d given up in exchange for Tony’s life. No other way. Tony shuddered. “Yeah.”

Rhodey eyed him. “Nebula told us what happened on Titan, you know. How you went toe to toe with Thanos. Even made him bleed.”

“Not enough,” Tony said. “What happened after Thanos got the full set?”

His friend hesitated. “Thor almost got him, but… Not enough. Thanos disappeared through some sort of portal, and people started just… disintegrating.”

“And who’d we lose?” Tony asked, as if this whole conversation hadn’t been leading up to that question, this moment.

“Aside from Vision? Wanda, Sam, T’Challa, Rocket’s tree friend. Thor is alive but… he’s not doing well. Bruce thinks it’s shock. Hasn’t spoken a word since it happened.”

Tony frowned, aware there was one name not mentioned. “Rogers?”

Rhodey hesitated. He was already dead, Tony thought in a blinding stab of panic, he died a year ago and nobody told me. “Rhodey…” Tony felt his breath catch, a warning sign of what was to come.

“No, no, he’s alive, Tony,” his friend rushed to reassure him. “We didn’t lose him. It’s okay. Steve’s alive.”

Alive. Then where…

“Captain Rogers was invaluable in those first days,” Shuri said, walking towards them. “It was chaos out there; nobody understood what had happened. FRIDAY and I could access any system on the planet, but Rogers was a familiar face, one many people still trusted. He calmed them down, got them focused on relief efforts, emergency plans, supply lines. His actions saved thousands if not millions of lives. But it meant he went days without sleep. His body is strong, but not invincible. The stress caught up to him, so he’s resting now.”

And Tony would have believed her, if not for the quick look she and Rhodey exchanged.

“Okay. Can I get up yet?” he asked, impatient to be back on his feet.

Shuri rolled her eyes and brought up some rapidly scrolling data from her wrist interface. “You’ll sit until I say otherwise, Stark. That was a nasty kebab impression you had going on. Plus whose idiotic idea was it to use my nanobots as an internal bandage?”

“Excuse me, those are Stark modified so therefore our nanobots, and gee, you know, kinda bleeding out at the time…” Joking around felt good, except Rhodey looked kinda sick. Oops.

“Yeah, I heard you fought Thanos. So how’d our bots hold up in battle?” Shuri asked, still scanning the data.

Tony allowed himself a grin. “Amazing. I wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds without them. If I’d had FRIDAY with me, I would’ve had him.”

“Wait, so you fought him blind?” Rhodey asked, shocked. “Tony, I swear, if you ever go into space alone again-”

“I wasn’t alone,” Tony said.

“Wizards don’t count.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Tony leaned back, aware he had to say it out loud, at least once. “Spider-Man was with me.”

“The kid?” Rhodey stood up in dismay, but they were both staring at him.

Tony nodded. “I sent him back but he snuck on board before the donut left orbit.”

Rhodey swore, a harsh, ugly string of sounds. “When we couldn’t make contact with him, we assumed he’d gone to ground.”

“Quite the opposite, I guess,” Tony said. That was pretty funny, but nobody laughed.

Peter would have laughed.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Tones,” Rhodey said.

Tony swallowed. “Yeah.”

After a moment, Shuri cleared her throat, then looked up at them. “Just to summarize, when you arrived you had two known Earth infections, five unknown alien ones, nine broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a shattered arm, a cracked pelvis, full-body bruising, and significant damage to most muscles and ligaments. Also when you got impaled, you ruptured five internal organs, any one of which would have killed you except you were held together by nanobots long enough for your body to begin healing around them. But that meant they then had to be individually extracted and the organs hand-repaired before I could even begin the accelerated healing process.”

Back on Titan, Nebula had run scans on him but had refused to share the results; Tony was suddenly glad. “So, I… can’t get up yet?” he asked.

In answer, Shuri smirked. “Don’t be silly. I’m amazing. You’re done here.” Magnificent, cheeky girl. Uh, Queen.

“Thank you,” was all he said. Rhodey said nothing but held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. Tony was amazed to discover he felt strong, standing. Even walking went well. Wakanda forever.

“Next step is eating, right?” Rhodey asked. That sounded sensible. Tony remembered a hunger, before.

“Yep, just small portions and often,” Shuri called over her shoulder, already off to her next task.

Rhodey led him through corridors until they arrived in a large warm room with the Wakandan equivalent of kitchen appliances along one wall.

“It’s something like a mess hall,” Rhodey confirmed. “We’re free to use it between scheduled meals.”

He sat and Rhodey brought him soup and he could not remember the last time he’d had soup but it was good soup and gone all too soon. Rhodey was eating soup and bread. Worried the terrible hunger would return, Tony reached for the bread but Rhodey grabbed his wrist. “I know it’s boring but try and let the soup settle first, Tones.”

Tony thought back to how sick he’d been with his cheeseburger binge right after Afghanistan, and nodded. He sat with Rhodey in their comfortable silence and let his thoughts wander. Accelerated healing always felt peculiar. Waking up with the pain erased, his mind still raw but his body left eerie. Disconnected. Like the way he knew he should eat but wasn’t actually hungry yet; the way he should be a post-apocalyptic mess but felt a hollow calm instead. He could feel a suffocating urgency raging within, but somehow he was sitting beside it, watching. He knew he could dive in, should dive in immediately and let the momentum take him. It was what was going to happen, after all.

No other way.

Yet that was the key, wasn’t it? If there was no other way, then this had to be the only way, but he had no directions for what that would look like, so it could look like anything. All he knew was the wizard thought his survival was vital to undoing the apocalypse. So, whatever he did next had to be a part of it, right? It sounded ridiculous even in his head, but this wasn’t some mystic notion of fate giving him comfort; no, it was faith, the same kind of faith he had in math and science, that even if he couldn’t see it or feel it, there was a predictable law governing the universe, a possible answer that was findable, knowable. Dr. Strange knew reality in a different language, that was all, and the wizard had seen a future where they could win; his actions had ensured this was the future where they would win; if their winning was therefore inevitable, then Tony couldn’t fail.

He just had to persist.

But if this future could look like anything, he knew exactly what he wanted.

Tony stood, looked at Rhodey. “I need to see him.”

Rhodey sighed, resigned. “Tony, he’s not… himself right now.”

“Yeah, since when exactly?” he said, already knowing the answer. “He needs to see me too.”

Rhodey pressed his lips together. “Nat’s with him. I can ask her…”

“Take me to him, Rhodey.”

His friend peered up at him. “I’m not sure now is a good time for this particular conversation.”

Tony barked a hard laugh. “It’s the end of the world. I think we’re out of time.”

Rhodey hesitated still. “You should know, Tony… Barnes was here.”

Oh. “In Wakanda?”

Rhodey nodded. “Shuri deprogrammed him. He was in recovery, joined us for the battle. But Tony… he got dusted too.”

Which added another name to his list, he was surprised to find. Apparently forgiveness was a sneaky beast. Too late to change anything now. “Take me to him.”

This time, Rhodey stood. “Okay. Just… be prepared. I don’t know how this is gonna go.

They walked more corridors to an anonymous door. Rhodey knocked. The door opened a crack, Nat, and she stepped outside when she saw Tony, blocking his view.

“Not a good time,” she said tightly.

Tony looked at her steadily. “I need to see him.”

Natasha leaned against the door and folded her arms, halfway to a fighting stance. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

As if he’d never met the man. “It started when I landed,” Tony said.

She stared at him, then scrubbed at her eyes. “Of course you would know that,” she muttered, and yes, those were tears threatening to spill.

“That bad, huh?” Rhodey asked in a hushed voice.

Natasha took a long steadying breath, then pinned Tony with a sharp glance. “I’ve been trying to get him to sleep. You’ve always been the Steve whisperer. Maybe you can do a better job.”

She’d always been more Steve’s friend than his. “Thanks, Nat.” She hugged him then, pressed her lips to his cheek in a gesture that was both welcome and apology, before stepping aside.

“We’ll be right out here if you need anything, Tones,” Rhodey said.

He nodded, and pushed open the door. A week ago he would have leaped at a chance to see Rogers solely to punch him in the teeth, and damn the consequences. Nothing like an apocalypse to gain some perspective. There was no time left for interpersonal drama, no room left for spite or vengeance. Now there was nothing left but the job.

Yet a dark worry fell across Tony as he stepped into the small room. Usually Steve’s bulk dominated confined areas without even trying; now his body was a small huddled heap on the floor. He sat by the bed, staring blankly at the wall. He’d grown a beard, a while ago by the looks of it. There was a hint of red around his eyes. Otherwise he looked fine. Maybe kinda bored, like he was waiting for something.

Except ten seconds later, he still had no idea Tony was standing there.

And, too late, Tony realized he had no idea what to say.

Therefore he was just standing and watching when the next racking spasm of grief passed over Steve, who just bowed his head and made the world’s saddest whimper. Then he raked violent fingers along his face and began to weep in short, explosive gasps; Tony felt the universe tilt sideways, and then he was kneeling in front of Steve and pulling his hands away to where they could do no more damage, and Steve was looking, staring, reaching. “T-Tony?”

“Steve.”

“We lost,” he said.

“I know.”

“You left,” he said.

“I know.”

“My fault,” he said, and then he crumbled, and Tony held him tight, kept him safe, whispered denials and absolutions into his hair until the super-soldier was spent and heavy with exhaustion. It took little persuasion for Tony to maneuver him onto the bed; they settled in to rest, Steve’s arms encircling Tony like he was a life preserver on a drowning sea. They fit neatly together, just like they always did, except when they didn’t. His stomach growled. The soup had clearly worn off, but nothing short of another apocalypse could have inspired him to move right now.

“Steve?” Tony asked, unsure if he was even awake.

“…yeah?” came the hazy reply.

“I’m gonna fix it.”

“Okay.”

They slept.

 

***

 

A gnawing ache woke him from the deepest sleep he could remember in years. The hunger was back.  Tony opened his eyes to the morning light, blinked once, twice at what he saw. Steve.

The super-soldier was awake and lying across from him, less than a foot away. He looked different lying down. Younger, maybe. Or perhaps it was the beard. Too sleep-fogged to resist, Tony reached out and ran his fingers through the scruff. Steve closed his eyes at the playful contact, opened them, smiled. Somehow this felt easy. Natural.

“Let’s always talk sideways,” Tony whispered, his voice rough with sleep.

Steve’s smile deepened. “Alright.”

“How long have you been awake?” Tony asked. The serum meant Steve needed a lot less sleep than most humans. Hopefully he hadn’t been bored.

“Long enough.”

“Sleep well?”

“Actually,” and Steve blushed a little behind his beard, “yes. Thanks.”

“Good, because that was some intense cuddle action. Like what are you, part koala?”

“No, Tony,” he said, and damn the man if he wasn’t giving him the blue-eyed Captain Earnest stare. “I think… I just needed to know that you were okay.” Steve hesitated. “That we were okay.”

That sad expression belonged on a vertical Steve, so Tony swatted him gently on the nose, much to the other man’s astonishment. “Hey, no moping in the cuddle zone,” Tony scolded. He let his voice turn serious. “We’re okay, Steve. Everything that happened before. It’s… done. I’m over it.”

“I’m still sorry,” Steve said softly. “And you would have every right to still be mad at me.”

“I’m just glad you’re alive to be mad at,” Tony said. He watched Steve relax, breathe, in and out. Huh. His eyelashes were dark blond. “I’m sorry you lost Barnes.”

Steve went still. “I’m sorry too. For Pepper, and Happy.”

“They’re not gone forever.” Again, Tony had forgotten to soften the words - even hope could wound - but Steve just nodded.

“I know,” he said. “You said you were gonna fix it. But I still don’t understand what ‘it’ is. Can you… could you take me through what happened, out there?”

Tony wasn’t sure he knew how to speak of Titan. It all felt too impossibly cataclysmic to fit into normal words. But he nodded, and the super-soldier opposite him snuggled deeper into his pillow, and somehow, in this sideways version of the world, it was safe to think back.

“The squid squad hit New York looking for the Time Stone,” he said. “And got it, but it was still attached to the wizard that owned it. Doctor Strange. Actual name, actual doctor. They took him back to their ship. I managed to sneak on board, but I wasn’t the only one.”

Steve stared at him, eyebrows creasing in a frown. “Who?”

“Spider-Man,” Tony said.

He watched Steve recall the memory. “The enhanced kid from Queens?”

“That’s the one.” Tony sighed. “He should never have been on that ship. Anyway. We freed the wizard, then we could have headed home but… I thought it would be better to keep going. Keep the fight away from Earth, maybe get the jump on Thanos. It was my call. I just wish… Whatever, it’s done now.”

“I would have done the same,” Steve said quietly. “It was a good call.”

“…yeah? Maybe.” And Tony stored away his regrets for what might have been, alongside all the others. “Anyway. Once we got to Titan, we met up with some other folks looking for Thanos. Rocket’s people. Decent fighters, but not… Luckily we had some time to kill. That’s when the wizard used the Time Stone to sneak a peek at the future. Steve, he said we could win. That there was a way. But only one.”

Tony paused, thinking back to the strange orange planet. “Up until then, the wizard had swore blind that his one job was to protect the Time Stone. That he would let me and the kid die if that’s what it took. But whatever he saw of the future, it changed his mind. When Thanos stabbed me, Strange gave him the Time Stone in exchange for my life. He said there was no other way. And… that’s it. That’s all I know.”

Steve was frowning again, and Tony rushed to explain. “I know it’s not much of a plan, there’s still so much work to do to figure out our next steps but it means there’s a solution, Steve, there’s a way to do this, all _we_ have to do-”

“-is not give up until we find it,” Steve finished, smiled, and Tony could have kissed him because sideways Steve got it, he believed him, he understood.

“Exactly,” he breathed instead.

“Alright, I’m in. On one condition,” Steve said, the frown sliding back onto his face.

Tony blinked. “Name it.”

Steve reached out and took Tony’s hand, weaving his fingers with Tony’s own. “That this time, you don’t go off alone to save the universe. That you don’t leave me behind again.” He paused. “Promise me that whatever comes, we’ll fight it together.”

Oh. “Technically that’s three conditions,” he found himself pointing out.

“Tony.”

And just that, just the soft sigh of Steve saying his name, was enough to stop the stars. He pressed their intertwined fingers to his lips, needing to mark the moment. “I promise,” he said. “Whatever comes. We do this together.”

Steve was blushing again, and for the first time - too late - Tony let himself wonder what else they could have been to each other, back in the world before the end of the world; wondered why they had never tried to find out just where the limits were between them; wondered at how easy, how natural this new intimacy felt.

Yet even nature decreed that some lives could thrive on annihilation, on tragedies; on terrible cracks in the peaceful order of things. Like a rare flower long deprived of sunlight suddenly blooming in the devastation left after a forest fire. It wouldn’t last. He knew it couldn’t last.

But it could be beautiful.

And at that precise moment, his empty stomach gurgled like a chorus of operatic frogs, and Steve fell into a fit of giggles.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up, fuzzface,” Tony griped, but it was natural then, easy, to get up and start the day together, go find food together, assemble the team together, and later comfort Thor together before spending the first of many more nights wrapped in each others’ arms; it was natural, and easy, and Tony let himself enjoy this strange new intimacy without caring about the questioning glances or the awkward whispers, because this was the future where he would save everyone, this was the only way, and he could make it as beautiful as he wanted.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Consolation

_consolation_

/ˌkɒnsəˈleɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. the comfort received by a person after a loss or disappointment._

_2\. a person or thing providing consolation._

_3\. (in sport) a goal scored at a point when it is no longer possible for the scoring team to win._

 

***

 

It had been seven long weeks and one day since the Devastation.

Six weeks since the reunited Avengers had announced to the world that there was a way to bring everyone back, broadcast on every radio and TV left on the planet.

Six weeks of Steve persuading people to hope, to hold on, to try just a little longer, even as he knew he was asking the impossible.

Granted, the initial surge of catastrophic threats had relented as more and more people rallied towards collaborative survival. Humanity had even racked up some heartening wins, but every day they lost far more than they managed to save. All Steve knew was that Tony had said there was no other way; he hoped that meant these losses weren’t permanent but merely strange eddies in some hideous unreality; he had to believe one day the Devastation would be undone. The battlefield part of him recognized that his belief was too convenient to be trustworthy, most likely a protective mechanism no different to any foolish superstition, but it also kept him detached enough to function despite the staggering losses.

The Captain used whatever shield he could.

It was the smaller tragedies Steve found impossible to shake, the quieter sorrows that slipped under his guard to bury yet another ache in his heart. Today’s horror, the call about a search and rescue he had helped to coordinate in the Australian outback; the schoolbus had been found full of tiny dehydrated bodies, no visible remains of the teacher or driver; the gallons of emergency water locked in the luggage compartment were untouched. After hanging up, Steve had thrown up in a bin, then felt scoured with guilt for rinsing his mouth.

Horrors were becoming routine, out there. The roiling death tolls once basic medical necessities like insulin and antibiotics ran out. The growing food shortages despite all efforts. The despairing aggression of the lost and the grieving. Even with the threat of international war averted, doomsday cults had sprung up seemingly overnight, matched only in number by local outbreaks of regional violence; all were fueled by the festering malignancy of old and cultivated petty tensions. Many local TV channels were still broadcasting, publishing hourly lists of names from those desperate to make contact with their loved ones after the commercial internet collapsed. The larger satellite-dependent channels had struggled to stay on the air, hit badly by the rolling blackouts as understaffed power stations went under. With most of their remaining technical staff busy with the emergency efforts, the few national channels still on the air had opted to show popular feel-good movies interspersed with only the major necessary updates, instead of their previous endless churn of news coverage. There was too much misery to report, even for them.

In here, within the protective walls of the Wakandan palace, a new routine had also taken root.

Every morning, Steve would get up when Tony woke and make him coffee; he didn’t really see why the billionaire needed the boost if he was getting enough sleep, but Tony insisted he liked the taste, so eventually they had compromised, a process also known as Steve giving in to whatever Tony wanted.

The whole team would meet for morning debrief over breakfast, or supper for the night shift. Then Tony would disappear off to work in the main lab with some combination of Thor, Rocket, Bruce and the Queen, plus Nebula on occasion. Steve would head to Command Ops; from there he could manage the international crises of the day with the steady assistance of FRIDAY, plus usually Rhodes and Clint on the day shift, with Nat and Okoye handling nights.

Except on the rare occasions he was physically needed abroad, at lunch Steve would bring Tony food and another round of coffee, a trick which made the billionaire take a break for at least ten minutes, and Steve soon learned ways to steer him outside to get some fresh air at the same time. Often, if Tony was in full flow when he arrived, Steve got to hear his internal monologue out loud. It was as incomprehensible as ever - he still didn’t get what a ‘quantum’ was - but he never tired of listening to the billionaire’s quick chatter, enjoying the peek into Tony’s unfiltered mind.

Evening debrief meant catching everyone up to speed on the day’s happenings over another meal, then the night shift would take over and the rest had downtime. Steve used these couple of hours to train in the gym unless he’d been on a mission, in which case he liked to join whoever was in the common room for the feel-good movie of the day. After FRIDAY’s cheerful voice was granted access to the rest of the palace, at times it almost felt like the old days at Avengers Tower.

Almost.

Now that the _Benatar_ was fully repaired, Tony usually spent his evenings working on in the lab until the minute Steve came and got him; all bar Sundays, when he and Rhodey took their upgraded nanosuits out for a spin. The rest of the lab crew seemed content to nap when they dropped; if nothing else, their erratic schedule meant there was always at least one other person awake and working in there. But as he was kinda the key to the restoration of half the universe, Steve insisted on putting Tony to bed at a reasonable hour. At first he’d argued for a full eight-hour window to recover optimal function, but Tony claimed to be one of those rare humans who naturally thrived on just five hours’ sleep a night, so Steve had given in. Well, maybe Tony had had to convince him. There may have been a presentation. With bullet points. And a few scans, with expert testimony from Shuri and Bruce. Anyway. Early in the second week, Tony had stopped arguing when Steve showed up every evening, and halfway through week three had admitted that the regular schedule may have improved the quality of his work. Steve tried not to be smug.

As it happened, Steve himself could physically sleep no more than four hours in a given day, but getting up early and disturbing Tony’s rest was not an option. At first he’d felt guilty for shirking his duty and requested a portable Wakandan device from which he could check a few things, but soon he’d found himself sleeping less and less and working more and more. After a scolding from Tony that included seventeen uses of the phrase ‘self-care’, Steve had agreed to set work aside and instead use the extra hour to relax and recharge. Twenty days after Tony’s return, he’d asked the Queen for a sketchbook and a holo-reel of Wakandan flowers; he looked forward now to the quiet dark of the mornings, drawing small delicate blossoms with Tony snoring softly at his side.

It was a strange mix of novel and familiar, but after six weeks, this new routine felt soothing in a way Steve wasn’t sure he deserved.

It wasn’t like he was oblivious. Everyday he witnessed the struggles out there, drank them in and spat them out in short bursts, his mind alternating between shying away from such enormity and attempting to swallow everything at once in an endless despair. Steve could see the same see-saw moments play out within his team, could see when his friends tipped too far, needing to step away for a minute, an hour, a day. Yet they always returned, fighting even now for balance. In truth everyone on the planet was struggling in their own way, and that brought some absurd comfort. It made the struggle normal, a fierce ghoulish normal where no one was okay but at least everyone understood why.

But what Steve was struggling with was… different. And no one, not even his friends, understood - heck, Steve didn’t think he understood - and so it wasn’t normal.

It was Tony.

More specifically, it was the way they shared a bed now, and that felt… right, but from the glances he was getting here and there, he wasn’t sure it was right. No one had mentioned Pepper where Steve could hear, but he saw Rhodey subtly check Tony’s hand for his engagement ring every morning, as if to be sure he hadn’t removed it. Hadn’t forgotten her. As if Tony could ever forget Pepper. They were the strongest couple Steve knew.

And yet… Tony hadn’t mentioned her. Hadn’t really talked about what they were doing at all. He’d just followed Steve back to his room that first night and crawled into his bed like it was routine behavior. And after a few nights, it was. At the time, Steve was slow to question it, content to savor every second he got to spend with Tony after such a long and bitter separation. But as days turned to weeks, he felt more and more as if there was something hanging over him, something vast and hidden and unspoken between them, and it loomed larger every day.

In truth he was scared to bring it up, terrified to rupture whatever fragile new thing they were growing together. And Tony needed him close. All the pressure of saving the world had been placed on the billionaire’s shoulders, so Steve’s job was to protect him from everything happening outside. By unspoken agreement, the lab crew stayed within their bubble, exploring tenuous ways to neutralize the Gauntlet or the Infinity Stones or do something quantum that sounded a lot like time travel to Steve, although he’d learned not to mention that phrase within their earshot. Steve’s team spent their days reaching out to the world, doing everything they could to save as many as possible, but really they were all just waiting around to be saved like everybody else. For Tony to save them. To be fair, his team tried not to ask too many questions of him or the lab crew, but every passing day etched worrying lines onto Tony’s face.

It had to be too much pressure for just one man, yet Tony was coping, he thought. Just about. So long as Steve was there. There were cracks, sometimes. Like when Nebula finished work on the _Benatar_ and flew off alone to find Thanos, Tony had been moody for days. He missed her, Steve thought afterward. She’d been there, on Titan, an impartial witness to the wizard’s words. Now Tony had just himself. A week ago, he’d broken down. Shattered a chair against the wall after yet another setback. Bruce had called Steve, and he’d let the billionaire pour forth his secret doubts, his lack of faith that he could do this impossible thing, his terror of failing after all.

Tony had cried then, but Steve had held him together, easy. After so many weeks spent up close, the man was beginning to make more sense to Steve. He understood now that Tony’s worst battles were always against himself, his most vicious wounds self-inflicted. Memories of before flooded Steve with bitter regret for all the ways he too had insisted that Tony fight himself, fix himself. He hadn’t been close enough to see, then. As if he’d been judging a painting based on a montage of cheap partial photographs, he’d let himself be fooled by the clashing perspectives, the lack of focus; he’d spent years refusing to acknowledge the artistry before him, until some weird twist of circumstance allowed him to get close enough to correct his mistake. Let him stay close enough for long enough to appreciate the details without losing his overall perspective, an appreciation that over the weeks built towards awe.

No, it was easy for Steve to see all of Tony now, to embrace his uncertainty alongside his determination, cherish his vulnerability as well as his strength, and finally understand that there was nothing here that needed fixing. Tony just needed his help, for Steve to hold him safe until he slept; the next morning, Steve had watched a restored Tony wake up and bounce back into hopeful action, ready to damn the odds. Steve knew that to be the day this new thing between them had grown beyond plain necessity, had blossomed into delight.

At least, it had for _Steve_.

He sighed and quit punishing the reinforced punch-bag. The Queen had requested his presence in her private lab, if he could spare the downtime, and Steve was happy to oblige. The pleasant ache of fatigue in his muscles was already fading as he took a quick shower. Dammit. It was a sign he needed more vigorous exercise than he’d been getting lately, and he made a mental note to ask Thor to spar with him tomorrow. The Asgardian’s usually ebullient self was still much reduced, but he might agree to the challenge. He’d ask Clint, if not. The loss of his family had stripped everything from the archer except an inexorable thirst for revenge; until the team’s intervention a couple weeks in, he’d been running himself into the ground with twenty-hour shifts while volunteering on the hottest missions. Steve worried about him the most, but he had no solutions beyond what they were already doing.

At least Shuri’s request was a novel distraction. The young Queen was blasting some unfamiliar music as Steve entered the lab, nodding to the Dora Milaje positioned outside her door. Whatever the link was between genius and loud music, he didn’t know, but the unintentional reminder of Tony made him smile. Shuri spotted him quickly and beckoned him across the room.

“Do you know what this, Captain Rogers?” she asked when he joined her. A hologram of some sort of plant was projected before her, rotating slowly.

Steve frowned. Sure, he liked to draw flowers, but most plants were just plants to him. Even the glowing purple ones. “I’m not familiar with it, no,” he answered.

Shuri looked sad. “This is the herb that gives the Black Panther the power to protect our people. Its cultivation took generations, centuries of care. My brother was the last to consume it, during his battle with the usurper known as Killmonger. And my brother will be the last. Killmonger destroyed the garden, the one place on Earth in which the herb could grow. There will be no more.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Shuri gestured and the hologram changed to show two separate strands of DNA, one normal, and one dotted with the same purple radiance. “I was curious once, and my brother indulged me. This is his blood from the day before he first became the Panther, and this from the day after. You see the augmentation?”

Steve spread his hands helplessly. “I see one is purple?”

The young Queen shot him a grin, then with a casual gesture brought up a scrolling list of statistics.

“Speed, strength, healing, all physical measurements showed drastic improvement, far beyond the range of normal human activity. And to a lesser extent, there was a boost to mental acuity, memory retention, cognitive processing. His subsequent training improved the numbers even further, but by every measure I can think of, the herb made him superhuman overnight.” Shuri dismissed the displayed numbers and glanced at Steve. “Any of this sounding familiar?”

He was already getting a headache. “Familiar enough to know I’m not going to like this next part.”

The Queen paused. “Probably not, Captain Rogers. But I ask you to listen.” She turned to face Steve, her chin raised, looking every inch her mother’s daughter. “Regardless of Stark’s promise to bring back my brother, there can never again be another Black Panther. The garden is destroyed. The tradition is ended. And once my brother passes, Wakanda will go unprotected. Forever. That is why I wish to investigate the serum in your blood. If I can understand how you were made, then perhaps I can create a new tradition. Find a new way to protect our people.”

It took everything in Steve not to flinch away from her. From the number of people who had killed for his blood. Died for it. The idea of making more serum struck him as wrong, deep down into his core. What good had ever come of it?

And yet.

She was the first to _ask_.

“What if I say no?” He kept his voice steady and watched for her reaction.

The Queen returned his gaze, serene. “Then this conversation ends, and we never speak of it again.”

“No needles in my punch-bag?” he asked, but he’d already made up his mind.

Shuri rolled her eyes. “Like I’d need to be sneaky.”

Steve grimaced in rueful acknowledgment that he’d be well outmatched by her if it came to that, and the young Queen laughed easily, knowing the same. Yet between them lay a comfortable understanding that she meant her words; that it was Steve’s choice, and she would honor his decision.

And that was why one minute later, despite the Captain’s unease, Steve was rolling up his sleeve and letting her take his blood. Make it come to something good, he thought, as he watched the red flow through the tube. Make it something beautiful.

With only a small sample needed, nothing about the process should have affected him, yet he felt oddly depleted afterwards. Young though she was, Shuri was wise enough not to smother him in thanks. Instead she shooed him out of her lab as if nothing significant had just occurred.

His heart rate had returned to something like normal by the time he reached Tony in the main lab. The billionaire wasn’t expecting him so soon in the evening, and peered at Steve suspiciously from within a galaxy of holographic displays.

“This isn’t about the juice cleanse thing again, is it?” he asked, only half-joking.

Yet Steve was too drained to pretend. “Nah, I’m just early. Ignore me.” There was a couch that doubled as a nap station lying vacant nearby, and Steve sat down with every intention of letting Tony work another hour or so before calling it a night.

Of course the billionaire had his own ideas, and sat down next to him. “Bad day?”

Steve let the question sink through his whole body and still couldn’t find an answer. “I think…” he paused. “I guess.”

Without saying a word, Tony took Steve’s hand and pressed it to his lips, another of his small, ineffable gestures, but just like that, Steve’s day got better.

“Shuri took my blood,” he found himself saying.

Tony’s grip tightened, relaxed. “She at least ask first?”

Steve nodded, then processed the other man’s lack of surprise. “You knew?”

“Not exactly,” Tony answered, looking at him carefully. “I knew T’Challa was concerned. Before. But it’s a smart move.”

“I hope it helps,” Steve said. 

“Honestly, I’m just a little shocked that you gave it up so easy,” Tony joked, releasing Steve’s hand in order to elbow him in the ribs.

Steve ignored the tiny jolt of disappointment and flashed a serene and totally non-wicked smile. “Don’t tell Bruce.” It was really such an inappropriate thing to say, but it sent the billionaire off into gales of laughter, enough to set Steve genuinely grinning in turn. Across the lab, Rocket and Thor looked over but turned away again, muttering to each other. Whatever they were working on, the symbols were in some alien script that to Steve’s unfamiliar eye looked like garlands of flowers drawn in ink. They were the only other people around; Bruce must be sleeping.

Tony had regained his breath. “I wasn’t gonna, but I kinda want to tell him now.”

“He never asked,” Steve said, the words unplanned. “Everything he was trying to do. Maybe an answer to what went wrong.” He held out his hands, studied them. “It’s been right here, in my blood, this whole time. But he never asked.”

“I’m not sure he needs an answer anymore,” Tony said.

Steve hesitated. “Before I took the serum… Erskine said it would only enhance what was already there. Red Skull was monstrous, and became a monster. Bucky said I just grew an outside thick enough to match my idiot insides. But Bruce… I never asked. Where the rage comes from.”

“He has his reasons,” Tony said, his mouth grim. He and Bruce always did have a bond above and beyond the rest of the team. Science bros, they called it. Well, Tony called it, loudly and enthusiastically. Bruce pretended to endure the nickname, but Steve hoped he enjoyed it too.

“You never asked either,” Steve said.

Tony gave him a long look. “Nope.”

“Weren’t you curious?” Steve asked.

The billionaire wrinkled his nose at him. “Of course. Figuring out Erskine’s lost formula was one of the biggest puzzles of the twentieth century. People spent decades chasing the dream, promising they could deliver a new crop of super-soldiers, perhaps more. But honestly, at first I assumed it was a fairy tale, something for old men to talk about and young fools to waste their time on. And then later,” he gestured at Steve, “there was you.”

Steve didn’t follow. “But I’m living proof the serum works.”

Tony was shaking his head. “You’re living proof that it worked _for you_. But there’s no guarantee it would work out so well with anyone else. Howard told me once that Erskine’s greatest accomplishment wasn’t his mysterious formula. It was that he chose the best person possible for the job. And after meeting you, I agreed.”

“I’m not anything special, Tony,” Steve said, frowning. “I’m just a person, there are plenty of other people who could handle the serum responsibly.”

“I strongly disagree and will fight you over everything you just said,” the billionaire said in a severe tone, but he was smiling.

Yet Steve had realized the implications of Tony’s words, and stared at him. Awe. “You didn’t ask, because you knew you could do it.”

“Crack the formula? Yeah, probably.” Tony spread his hands. “But then give it to who? The Army? SHIELD? Fury was already hounding me to hand over Extremis after I helped Pepper. At least DC changed his mind on that one. Imagine an army of Rumlows breathing fire. Uh, no thanks.”

“But the serum fixed me, it could fix a lot of other people…” Steve said, his mind whirling with unfamiliar possibilities. Up until Shuri’s request, he had somehow assumed Erskine’s formula was an unreachable part of his past. A relic, buried in time. Not something that could affect any future but his own. But it would be selfish of him to keep such an opportunity to himself.

“There was nothing wrong with you,” Tony said sharply. Probably he meant well, but the dismissal stung.

“Sure, yeah, by today’s standards,” Steve countered. “But back then I spent half my childhood sick in bed, not knowing if I would even wake up the next morning.” Years of memories, years of frustration. “Always standing on the sidelines, watching other people live their lives without me.” Choking on jealousy. Yelling at his mother, the only person he could reach. Witnessing her exhaustion. Then, the shame.

A fuzzy-edged Tony had taken his hand again, and Steve looked away for some strategic blinking. “If the serum can fix people…” he started.

Tony shook his head, squeezed Steve’s hand. “Hey, remember Doctor Cho’s cradle? We’re rolling the technology out in fifteen major trauma centers this year, and once we’ve got enough momentum, there’ll be one on every street corner. Steve, I promise it’s gonna do everything the serum could have done to help people who are suffering. But only in the ways they want to be helped. No fixing. And no super-soldiers.”

“Help, not fix,” Steve said slowly, admiring Tony’s fingers entwined in his own. Of course, the billionaire already knew the difference. Always ahead. It was almost funny, how the same lesson kept returning. After the serum, Bucky had joked his skull was so dense now that Steve needed to be hit on the head several times to soften him up before new stuff could sink in.

Although come to think about it, before the serum he’d said much the same thing. Steve had always been stubborn.

Tony stayed silent, studying him until Steve looked up. His dark eyes were unreadable, but something about the moment made Steve’s heart beat faster, made his instincts thrill in an electric anticipation. Steve held himself steady, not sure what was happening. Tony tilted his head to one side, seemed about to speak, and Steve leaned in just a little, all the better to hear.

And there was a discreet but exasperating ping from FRIDAY, the signal to request their full attention. At least the interruption had made Tony jump too.

“Incoming communication,” the AI announced.

Tony was on his feet and heading towards Rocket and Thor before Steve could blink. “Is it the _Benatar_?” the billionaire asked, snapping back into his usual intense focus. Steve followed, just a beat behind.

“Confirmed,” FRIDAY said.

“Two-way?” Rocket asked.

“The ship is not in range of our broadcasting capability.”

“Guh, welcome to Earth! Lousy stinkin’ joke of a planet,” the raccoon griped. They all ignored him, having long learned not to pay his grumblings much heed.

“Decrypting the message requires two-step voice authentication,” the AI informed them.

“Engage protocol seventeen,” Shuri announced, sweeping into the main lab with two Dora Milaje at her back. The young Queen nodded to the others as she stepped up beside Tony. “ _Ground Control to Major Tom. Commencing countdown, engines on_ ,” she sang, her voice clear and loud.

“ _And I think my spaceship knows which way to go_ ,” Tony sang back; the two grinned at each other. Lost as he was, at least this esoteric exchange wasn’t science-related. Somehow Steve had never heard Tony sing before. New detail: he had a pleasant voice.

“Identities confirmed. Decryption initiated.” FRIDAY was quiet, then a nearby screen lit up to show Nebula’s face.

“Thanos is most likely on Titan. It is reported that the planet has been restored to how it looked before its destruction. Therefore I believe he still possesses a working Gauntlet.” The android seemed to hesitate. “I… can confirm the Andromeda galaxy was equally and instantaneously affected by his actions. Rumor suggests the same throughout the known universe.” Steve was surprised to feel his heart lurch. Clearly some part of him had still hoped there was some limit to the Devastation, some peaceful oasis beyond horror’s reach. Onscreen, Nebula shook her head. “I am now returning to Earth. Expect me in a week.”

The screen went dark. They all stood for a moment.

Then Shuri, Rocket and Tony were off, arguing back and forth about something quantum and complicated. Steve didn’t like Thor’s expression and gently steered him into a chair, resting his hand on the Asgardian’s shoulder. Time was, he wouldn’t have dared presume, but small affectionate gestures meant a lot these days, he was learning. Steve tried to follow the rapid debate but was lost as ever until Tony eventually took pity on him, slowing down enough to explain the basics.

“Okay, so the fact the Devastation occurred at the same moment everywhere in the universe kinda defies everything we know of the physics of time,” the billionaire started.

Rocket rolled his eyes but joined in. “Meaning those shiny magic rocks don’t play by our rules.”

“So maybe we don’t either,” Shuri said. Everyone looked at her. “We had assumed the Infinity Stones were lost to us, so the quantum realm was the only possible alternative. But if they’re still in play…”

“I significantly injured Thanos before he left,” Thor spoke up, his voice heavy with regrets. “And the Gauntlet was visibly damaged. If he is alone on Titan, he may yet be vulnerable to direct attack.”

The idea hung in the air like a rung bell, and Steve found every nerve in his body thrilling at the prospect of direct action. But a few feet away, Tony was looking crushed, and after a moment, Steve could understand why. Switching the plan now meant throwing out weeks of frantic work. Meant maybe weeks of wasted time. Which meant needless lives lost. Misery beyond measure.

“I think we need to gather the whole team before we discuss this any further,” Steve said.

Thor shot Tony a careful glance and nodded. “I agree.”

“I’ll rally the troops!” the Queen volunteered, and with a giant grin she bounced out the door, her escort following. Her ebullience more than anything reminded Steve that despite her dazzling mind and confident attitude, Shuri was still a kid, and one placed in an impossibly stressful position. Of course she would welcome any plan that promised a quicker reunion with her lost family. But whether or not attacking Titan was itself a good plan, Steve had no idea. They were all flying dark here, but none more so than Tony, who by now had turned his back to them all in a way Steve very much disliked.

Rocket took one look at the billionaire and turned to leave. “I’m guessing there’s only one captain for this job,” the raccoon said, stabbing his thumb over his shoulder at Tony and giving Steve a significant glare on his way out. Thor elected to say nothing but clapped Steve on the arm and smirked before he too left the lab.

Steve stepped up to Tony’s side, then realized he had no idea what to say, so instead of speaking he just took the billionaire’s hand and waited.

After about a minute, Tony managed a laugh. “Guess I should’ve read the manual on the end of the world, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure you are the manual in this scenario,” Steve said gently.

The billionaire scoffed. “Joke’s on the world, then.” He raised his other hand to brush at his eyes, then turned towards Steve, attempting a smile and failing miserably. “You gonna do your koala thing now or what?”

The super-soldier hadn’t actually planned to offer. Not in public. Steve studied him. “Is that what you want?”

Tony opened his mouth, closed it again, nodded. And it was that simple. Steve opened his arms and the billionaire buried his face in Steve’s shoulder. Funny. The super-soldier had shaved off his beard before the global broadcast six weeks ago; better to present a more familiar sight to the traumatized citizens of the world, Tony had said. Steve had kept up shaving since, figuring the illusion of calm might help steady the people he spoke with every day. Tony had turned up to the broadcast with his trademark goatee and styled hair, then, as soon as the cameras stopped rolling, promptly let it all slide. Steve rather approved of the rougher look, but had brought the billionaire a razor once his beard threatened to reach full lumberjack. Just in case of future public events. Tony had laughed and restored the goatee but left his hair wild. And as it turned out, a standing Tony was just tall enough for his untamed curls to tickle underneath Steve’s chin. Details.

After a few minutes, Tony sighed. “It’s a better plan,” he informed Steve, and yeah, that was Tony’s breath on his neck.

“You’re sure?”

The billionaire tried to shrug without letting go of Steve, then growled when he failed, which provoked further interesting sensations. “Better than anything we’ve got so far. Worth an assessment, at least. If it’s too risky, we can still go the quantum route. But Steve, honestly?” His voice shook slightly. “Right now we’re at a dead end. If that’s the route to salvation, we’re looking at years.”

Given the increasingly strained faces of the lab team, Steve had anticipated delays, but the timeline was still a blow. Not Tony’s fault, though. “We’ll take it slow if we have to. For now let’s work through the variables. Figure out if a strike on Titan is even feasible.”

“At least we know if I go in first and don’t die, we’ll have a shot,” Tony murmured, then gasped. “Uh, kinda need to breathe here, soldier.”

“Sorry.” Steve forced his arms into a less crushing grip, but he was still disturbed by what the billionaire had said. “Please tell me you were kidding, though.”

“Um. Yeah, totally,” Tony tried.

Steve stepped back and grabbed the billionaire by the shoulders. “You are not facing Thanos alone,” he said desperately, scrutinizing Tony’s face for a sign that his words were getting through. “Not now, not ever.”

“What if there’s no other way?” Tony asked, his eyes dark and serious.

“Then we _find_ one,” Steve hissed. “Together. You promised, remember?”

The billionaire nodded, slower than Steve would like but he’d take it. The super-soldier let his hands drop, suddenly aware his grip had grown too strong again, would probably leave bruises. Careless.

But Tony wasn’t backing away. He was studying Steve like a diagram, still with that serious expression. “It’s gonna work, Steve,” he said then, softly. “This plan or another, we’ll get the job done. And if we do go to Titan, we’ll go together. Just like I promised.”

The billionaire sounded sincere. Steve wanted to believe he really was sincere. Yet he also knew Tony would sacrifice anything, betray everything, for a chance to do what he thought was right. It was a detail he’d somehow sneered at from afar. He flat-out hated it now, up close. But regardless, it was true and it was real, and so Steve had accepted it.

And if he had also accepted the job of making sure that never ever had to happen, so what?

“Okay,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Tony echoed him; this time the smile reached his eyes, and Steve relaxed a little.

A sleepy-eyed Bruce appeared at the door to the lab. “Hey, I think there’s a meeting? You guys coming?”

“On our way,” Tony called over, and he shot Steve a grin that promised mischief. “I’m so gonna tell him,” he teased.

The serum. It felt a week ago. Steve reached out and swatted him gently on the nose. “Nuh-uh. Bad Tony.” The billionaire looked scandalized, but Steve was already halfway out the door. All these weeks, he’d felt the growing sense that there was something urgent he was missing within the strange soothing peace they had established; that the future lay coiled in some vast unfathomable wave towering above him and Steve could do nothing but wait for it to fall; now, it seemed, the time of waiting may be over. If it truly was time to act, well, action was always what Steve did best. If there could only be one path to saving the world, he knew in his heart that Tony would find it now.

And wherever the path took him, Steve would be right next to him, keeping him safe.

 

 

 


	3. Anticipation

_anticipation_

/antɪsɪˈpeɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. a prior action that takes into account or forestalls a later action._

_2\. intuition, foreknowledge, or prescience._

_3\. (in music) the early sounding of one or more tones of a succeeding chord to form a temporary dissonance._

 

***

 

The plan came together quickly, in the end.

After their meeting concluded that an attack on Titan had their best chance of success, Thor traveled to Nidavallir and spoke with the one surviving dwarf, who confirmed he could make them a new Gauntlet given adequate assistance. The lab crew had subsequently spent an eventful week there, with Thor ferrying them back and forth every morning and evening. Steve had complained about this, loudly, but so long as Tony came home every night, he had eventually agreed to stay on Earth to work on collaborative battle strategies with Rhodey and the rest.

Once they had secured their own version of the Gauntlet and had set a reasonable date for the assault on Titan, the team had allowed themselves one long day to argue over who should take the risk of wielding it once they successfully retrieve the Infinity Stones. Rocket’s past experience with the Power Stone had convinced Tony to back Thor as the only possible candidate until Nebula silenced them all with a powerful speech listing everything Thanos had done to her over the years. It was agreed then that she had the right to attempt the Gauntlet first, with Thor on standby if it proved too dangerous for the android. Thankfully, Steve had quit trying to volunteer by that point. Super-serum or not, there was zero chance Tony was letting him anywhere near that thing.

The crisis intervention teams were in good shape, having run several difficult missions each since the Devastation. In contrast, the lab crew were relatively sloppy after long weeks of inaction, but a further ten days of drills brought them back up to fighting speed. After Shuri began running nightly healing sessions on the whole team, Steve pushed them harder than Tony would have thought possible.

Tony and Shuri spent the rest of their free time on equipment upgrades for the team, which felt just like old times. Based on his previous experience with Thanos, Tony also added a few tweaks to the nanobots and tripled their reservoir count, which meant the temporary arc reactor he kept installed on his chest felt almost as heavy as the old implanted one. The familiar weight felt comforting somehow. The first night after, Steve claimed he could hear the reactor’s inner workings, which Tony supposed was possible; thankfully Steve also said he liked the hum. Removing it every evening would have been a pain.

The work meant he and Steve were now both falling into bed exhausted, rarely at the same time, and waking just in time for breakfast. It was selfish but in all the bustle Tony missed their previous morning routine, craved the quiet early moments of feigned sleep where he could watch Steve with his flowers, fingers hovering over impossibly delicate sketches. As the big day approached, a growing part of Tony despaired at the idea that those moments were over for good.

There were now three days to go before Titan, and Tony was scowling at his breakfast. The main dish featured a grain he didn’t know the name of cooked with seeds he couldn’t identify. It was delicious, but it was no cheeseburger. At least there was coffee. Not really thinking, he reached for the pot to pour a third cup, and jumped when Steve gently tapped his wrist.

“Third cup gives you jitters,” the super-soldier reminded him, then frowned down at his outstretched hand.

Tony followed his gaze and was shocked to notice his hand was already trembling. Well. That was embarrassing. He grabbed more toast instead and shrugged at Steve, pretending nonchalance. The super-soldier was not fooled, narrowing his eyes at Tony, but he did eventually look away.

Rhodey came in and sat across from them, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. “Mornnngh,” he muttered. Tony poured him a cup of coffee and pushed it towards him. Odd. Usually Rhodey was a morning person. Nearby, Clint dropped his fork with a loud clang, cursing as he stretched down to pick it up and Tony’s ribs twinged in sympathy. The archer had badly snapped a forearm in training yesterday, and despite the joys of instant healing, some sensations tended to linger.

“Okay, enough,” Steve said under his breath, then pushed his chair back and stood up tall in full command mode. And as usual, that was all it took for everyone in the room to turn and give him their full attention. Tony liked to call this effect the ‘Cap-signal’. But Steve was talking with his earnest face on, which meant Tony should be listening. “…I know we’re all working as hard as we can, and I know this is the most important job we’ve ever done, but running ourselves into exhaustion isn’t gonna do anybody any good. So I’m officially putting a pause on the preparations. If that means we have to hit Titan a day later, then so be it. From this moment, you have twenty-four hours. Take the time to rest, relax if you need to. Do whatever it takes to get your mind right. Maybe try to remind yourself what it is we’re fighting for. But no work. Not today.”

Nobody argued, which was in itself a worrying sign. Yet Tony had to admit it was kinda nice watching the team relax and chat over breakfast instead of hurrying off to their endless duties. Even Shuri joined them for a while, quickly approving the change in plan and even offering stealth transport to anywhere in the world. Clint and Nat were the first to take up the Queen’s offer, wishing to visit the farm, with Okoye volunteering to fly them. She and Nat had become close friends through their many weeks running the night shift, and from what Tony understood things were still strained between the General and her exiled husband, so likely Okoye preferred the distraction.

After some thought, Nebula announced she was taking the _Benatar_ out into orbit to test their recent modifications. Rocket offered to accompany her but the android rebuffed him and stalked out alone in her customary abrupt way. Instead, Thor invited the raccoon to join him on an excursion, something about Norway. After checking in with Tony, Rhodey offered to pilot for the two off-worlders; he’d always wanted to see the Northern Lights but had never found the time. Surprisingly, given his dislike of planes, Bruce chose to accompany them. Although maybe Tony shouldn’t have been surprised. He and Thor had forged a strong connection during their time in space, and were rarely found far from each other these days.

Eventually, everyone had left bar himself and Steve. The super-soldier had poured himself another cup of local tea and was sitting quietly at Tony’s side. The silence was nice. It let him think, which was good, because Tony had zero ideas for what to do with his free time. Work had always been how he coped with stress. It felt perversely threatening to walk away from it now.

“So, to the lab?” Tony looked over, confused. Steve was smirking at him. Oh. Cute.

“Whatever happened to ‘no work, not today’?” he teased with melodramatic air quotes.

Steve shrugged and sipped his tea. “I think that order applies more to people who don’t consider their workspace a literal playground.”

“And gee, you got me a whole extra day to go swoosh-swoosh on the merry-go-round,” Tony cooed. “Thanks, Captain Au-pair-ica.” Which was probably the weakest joke he’d ever made in his life and made them both pull appropriately appalled faces, but at least it also made Steve laugh.

“You ready to go?” the super-soldier asked after draining his teacup.

Tony blinked. “Yeah, but… what’re you gonna do all day?”

“Eh, don’t worry about me.”

Like Tony had a choice. But Steve seemed fine as they headed to the lab. The super-soldier settled in on the couch near Tony’s station and buried his nose in the eternal sea of infinite reports. Figuring Steve would prefer to work in silence, Tony dug out a pair of earphones for his usual musical accompaniment, and he was soon able to lose himself in his work. The extra time proved to be a luxury beyond measure, allowing him to explore multiple solutions for each problem instead of settling for the quickest or easiest fix. Watching his efforts blossom into useful improvements was always gratifying, but today the process soothed him to his core.

Yet early in the afternoon, Tony was annoyed to notice that a) he had a body, and b) it was hungry. This was all Steve’s doing, bringing him lunch every day like some kind of Pavlovian zoo keeper. Yet when he checked, the super-soldier hadn’t budged from the same spot on the couch he’d occupied all morning. From the projected images around him it looked like he was reading the current reports from the Wakandan crisis team that Shuri had assembled while the rest of them focused on Titan. Tony watched him for a minute, not liking the way Steve’s shoulders were hunched over, the frown pinching his features. Typical stubborn idiot of a man, giving them all a day off to get their minds right but filling his own head with tragedies beyond his reach.

“Yeah so I’ll be back,” Tony announced abruptly. He received no response, and when Tony returned thirty minutes later, Steve blinked and glanced over at his station as if the super-soldier hadn’t even noticed he’d left.

Enough. “On your feet, soldier,” Tony commanded. He stood in front of Steve, blocking his view of the horrific reports, and held out his hand.

After a beat, Steve clasped his wrist and got to his feet heavily; Tony had to support his weight more than he’d expected until the super-soldier stepped free. “What’s going on?”

“Jailbreak,” the billionaire quipped. “Or to be more precise, I’m stealing you for the rest of the day.” Tony held out his hand again, and waited as a cloud of confusion passed over Steve’s features, then cleared.

“Whatever it takes?” the super-soldier asked dryly.

“Hell yeah.”

Steve took Tony’s hand and smiled. “Then lead on.”

And so he did, leading the super-soldier outside into the warm sunshine and onto the waiting speeder, the onboard map blinking arrows towards their destination. Driving on land or sea never produced quite the same thrill as flying, but as he pushed the vehicle as fast as it could go, Tony felt like he could soar at the windswept bliss on Steve’s face.

Reluctantly, Tony slowed as they approached the soft golden meadows he and Rhodey had passed over a few weeks back on one of their evening flights. He parked the speeder and jumped down, grabbing the large bag of supplies he’d hastily packed. Steve was looking around at the stunning landscape, still pink-cheeked with pleasure. Thankfully semi-permanent inoculation against sun damage was part of Shuri’s magic bag of medical tricks, so they could both relax outdoors without fear of sunburn. Wakanda was full of such casual wonders.

“Where are we?” Steve asked.

“Not there yet,” Tony answered. “We gotta walk a bit from here. Protected grounds, Shuri said. There’s a rare species of cricket.”

“At least let me take the bag?” the super-soldier offered.

“Don’t worry about it.” It was kinda heavy, but he could handle it.

“No way, Tony. You steer, I carry,” Steve said, and grinned down at him smugly. “It’s kinda our thing.”

Tony couldn’t actually think of an argument, so he chucked the bag at the super-soldier and let him think he’d won.

The early afternoon sun was high above them as they set off, and the warmth already baked into the ground rose to greet them as they walked. After only a few minutes, Tony surrendered to the heat and stripped down to his tank top, and a minute later, Steve did the same. For a while Tony may have been a tad distracted - hello _arms_ \- but eventually he remembered to check their location on his wrist device. Navigating was so much easier from a hundred feet up. Once they were heading in the right direction, the two men were free to chat and wander slowly through the gentle meadows towards the hills beyond. Soon enough, the ground began to rise steeply and their steps fell into an easy quiet rhythm.

After about an hour’s climb, they arrived.

Part of a deep hidden canyon lay spread before them, two wide and shallow rivers plummeting over the cliffs at each end. The falls of water were delicate, ethereal, spreading misty angel wings over the greenery far below. The sun sent glimmering rainbows playing around the edges. Steve stood and stared, all eyeballs, drinking in the sight as though he could swallow it whole.

The view was as spectacular from the ground as Tony had predicted, but he was by now super extra hungry and so he left Steve to his staring and sneakily resumed custody of the supply bag abandoned by the super-soldier’s feet. It took a good ten minutes for the super-soldier to return to reality, and by then Tony was sitting on a blanket, a full picnic on display.

“And there’s _food_ ,” Steve breathed, clearly still floating down from his wonder high. Plus, hungry Steve was never the sharpest Steve.

Tony took another bite of his apple. “Eat, you dork.”

The super-soldier sat and started assembling a sandwich. In his hasty preparations, Tony hadn’t had time to do much beyond grab the basics, but he’d made sure to pack enough to satisfy even Steve’s enhanced appetite. He soon discovered to his horror that building a well-balanced sandwich was evidently not included in basic Army training; Steve was apparently satisfied with slapping plain cheese onto dry bread and cramming the result into his mouth. It was, frankly, an outrage. After Tony’s intervention on the sandwich front, Steve volunteered to brew some tea. (“So what, like, you carry around a hot plate for emergencies?” Tony asked, confused. “There’s this thing called ‘fire’, Tony,” Steve said, then laughed for three entire minutes. Tony counted.)

Eventually there came a time when the food was eaten, the tea was drunk, and there was nothing left to do but pass a few hours waiting for the sunset. For some reason, Steve elected to stretch out on the dry, yellowish grass beside the perfectly good and comfortable blanket. Since this type of hobbits-in-nature experience was much more Steve’s arena than his, Tony decided to be adventurous and give the grass a try.

Turned out grass tickled like a bitch.

“Uh, nope,” Tony declared, and rolled back onto the soft blanket, accidentally kicking over the empty metal pot Steve had used for the tea. “Balls,” he muttered, and sat up to stow the remainder of their lunch safely in the bag for later. “Ouch,” he complained as an errant cheese knife poked his finger.

A snort of laughter came from Steve’s direction.”Yeah, haha,” Tony groused, and stuck his finger in his mouth.

“Sorry,” Steve said, not at all sorry as his merriment eased into a contented smile. He was lying with his eyes closed, the afternoon sun kissing golden highlights into his hair, and Tony kinda wished he had a camera - uh, camera, picture, wait, yes-

“Brought you something,” Tony said. He retrieved Steve’s sketchbook from the bag, tempted to throw it at his idiot smiling face but tossing it onto Steve’s stomach instead. The super-soldier’s eyes flew open and he sat up in surprise. He stared at the sketchbook so long that Tony was beginning to wonder if he’d done something wrong.

“I was just thinking…” Steve said. He looked up at Tony. “How did you know?”

Tony waved at the vista before them. “Eh, bring a man to water, throw him in, maybe he’ll drink.”

Steve Rogers, drama queen, wrinkled his nose and grandly addressed a nearby tree. “How did that make no sense, but also completely make sense? Do you know? Because I don’t know.” But a moment later, he dropped the act and tilted the sketchbook towards Tony. “Anyway. Thanks.”

It was really no big deal. “Pencils in the bag,” Tony answered, and flopped down on the nice tickle-free blanket, happy to stay out of the way. It looked like tomorrow in the lab would need to be a long day, but he figured if he sorted his thoughts now, he could at least get his shit done as efficiently as possible. And he did spend a good chunk of time mentally reviewing his task list, but gradually, he felt his awareness slow to match the deep peace of the land around them. In return, a hazy sleepy contentment seeped throughout his body and set him floating away from all of his worries.

Not wanting to actually fall sleep, Tony opened his eyes slightly, tilted his head to one side. Steve now sat further towards the canyon’s edge, lost in concentration, his profile lit red by the setting sun. Beauty, Tony thought. At that moment, Steve looked over at him and smiled. Art, Tony thought.

“Good nap?” Steve asked mildly. Wretch, Tony thought.

“What! Excuse you, I don’t nap,” he snapped, sitting bolt upright as if to prove it. Wait, the air kinda felt a bit cold now, how was it cold now?

“Uh-huh,” Steve said, sketching away. He was wearing his own jacket. Cold confirmed.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Tony insisted.

“Okay, I believe you.”

“I was planning my work for tomorrow, which demanded my total concentration,” Tony declared. He checked his watch. “For three point five hours. With my eyes closed.”

“You were snoring,” Steve said, still happily sketching.

Tony refused to dignify this accusation with words, instead scoffing loudly and rolling his eyes.

“You hum too,” the super-soldier continued. “While you’re working. If it’s going well. Did you know that?”

For a moment, Tony had no idea what Steve was talking about. He usually blasted music out loud when he worked and sang along to that, if anything. Then he remembered the earphones he’d worn earlier, so he could play music without disturbing Steve. Music that was apparently loud enough to prevent him from hearing himself make noise. Meaning…

“You were _so_ off key,” Steve said, and the man dissolved into a giggle fit so strong he dropped his pencil. Wretched… old wretch of a wretch. Tony tried to pretend he was offended but even he couldn’t keep a straight face.

Eventually he got up and sat next to Steve. “I _can_ actually sing, you know,” he grumbled, pulling his own jacket on against the descending evening chill.

The super-soldier had retrieved his pencil and resumed drawing. “I know. I heard you.”

“I’ve never heard you sing.”

“That’s because having to listen to me sing qualifies as a war crime.”

“Aha, the real reason Captain America went on the run.”

And even before Steve froze, Tony regretted the quip. Things had been so comfortable between them lately, he’d allowed himself to forget how easily these moments had ruined them before. How constant petty conflicts had worn away their friendship in ways he’d never suspected until too late. The worst part was remembering how he’d reveled in their back-and-forth at the time, flinging remarks designed to provoke, enjoying Steve’s exasperated tolerance, mistaking the super-soldier’s criticism for honesty, his irritation for intimacy, long before the Accords proved how badly Tony had misjudged. At least just now, Tony had noticed when he’d crossed the line. Maybe that could count as progress.

Steve slowly put down his sketchbook and turned to him, a pained expression on his face. “We never talked about it.” True, but in Tony’s mind there just hadn’t been any point, after the Devastation. The past was what it was. The present was an anomaly, soon to be erased. A dream of a different future was all any of them had left.

“Maybe we don’t need to talk about it,” Tony offered. But maybe there was too much to talk about, was more what he meant.

“I think I want to,” Steve said anyway. “If you don’t mind?”

Tony exhaled slowly. It definitely wouldn’t be his first preference for a conversation, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to be reasonable yet, but Steve had his sad face on, and that was not okay. Not today. “How about you say whatever you wanna say, and I’ll listen. I just… may not have much to add.”

“That’s fair,” Steve said, nodding. He took a slow steady breath of his own. The sky above them was turning an electric mix of purples and reds as the sun finally kissed the horizon. “Did you read my letter?” the super-soldier asked eventually. At Tony’s nod, he looked relieved. “I meant what I said, Tony. I would have come back if you’d called. The second you needed me.”

The old ugly hurt stirred within him, but this was not the time. “I never questioned that.”

Steve looked away at the sunset again. “Did you ever want to? Call, I mean.”

No, Tony wanted to say. I carried that damn phone with me for two years and every moment I wanted to smash it. He killed my _mom_ , Steve. And you knew. And you didn’t tell me. “Not exactly,” he said.

The super-soldier reached into his jacket’s inner pocket and pulled out a flip phone identical to the one Tony had lost. He powered it up and held it out to Tony without speaking. Tony took it delicately, not sure what he was supposed to do next, but Steve was staring away into the distance, his shoulders hardened into battle lines yet somehow, still, brittle.

Okay then. Tony opened the phone’s contacts first. Just the one number, saved under a blank name; about what he’d expected. One incoming call in its history. Bruce. Lucky really, that he’d dropped it in New York before leaving for Titan. But that memory led him to a new realization. “You thought it was me calling?”

Steve gave a curt nod. “Once we saw the news, I was gonna call anyway. But then… it was Bruce.”

“That honestly must have sucked,” Tony said.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve said, “but that’s not…” He shook his head, jaw clenched, and gestured at the phone.

Tony took the hint. There was one more possibility he could think of. He opened the only other default app and there they were. Hundreds of messages saved. Apologies, at first. Dozens of attempts. Then just… Steve, talking about his day, sharing mundane stuff about what he’d seen, what he’d thought. He’d written to Tony every night, it seemed. Dozens of nights. Hundreds of messages. All unsent. “Steve...” he said, then stopped, confused. The other man had walked away, in Siberia. Had chosen to leave. This made no sense.

“Saying sorry doesn’t change anything about what happened,” Steve said. “About what I did. But I am sorry, Tony. I’ve been sorry for years.” He paused. “I wanted to call every day. Tell you that I was sorry. That I missed you. But I thought you might not answer. That you might need more time. So I waited. But I wrote to you, so we didn’t seem so… finished.” His expression twisted into anguish. “And then it was too late to tell you anything, because you were already gone. Because I’d left, so you had to fight alone, and then we had to fight without you, and then it was over and you were gone and we’d _lost_ , god, we’d lost _everything_...” The super-soldier buried his face in his hands, and the small hurt part of Tony gloated at how, for once, Captain America didn’t get to be the good guy; the same ugly part of Tony welcomed every moment of Steve’s distress, thought it was the least the super-soldier deserved.

The hurt was a relic from another lifetime, a wound that belonged to another man’s past; none of it could matter anymore. Tony moved closer, wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders, laid his head against Steve’s, closed his eyes. “Easy, Cap,” he murmured. “I’m here now. And this time, we’ll get the job done. I promise.”

The super-soldier froze at his touch, silent; then he grabbed onto Tony’s encircling arms as if he were drowning, and they sat together wordlessly, watching as the sun set the horizon ablaze in one last wash of ecstatic color.

“Do you think we’ll remember any of this?” Steve asked hesitantly.

Tony closed his eyes, wishing for a different answer. “No.”

The super-soldier sighed, and they sat a while more.

“I hope you show me the phone,” Tony said.

“It’d help?”

“Might be a start.”

Later, after the last of the sun had slipped from view, Steve murmured, “I hope I hear you sing.”

They sat until it was fully dark, then made their way back down to the speeder by the light of Tony’s wrist device; back at the palace, they joined the rest of the team for a large dinner, and everyone slept well that night.

 

***

 

Four days later, the strike team left for Titan.


	4. Infiltration

_infiltration_

/ɪnfɪlˈtreɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. a process in which individuals or groups enter or gain access to an area, especially to pass through gaps in the enemy line._

_2\. the slow passage of a liquid through a filtering medium._

_3\. the process of gradually becoming a part of something._

 

***

 

The serene blue curve of the planet before them filled every window in the _Benatar’s_ cockpit, and Steve thought once more how very odd it was that this alien place could look so much like home.

“But are you _sure_?” Tony asked for the third time since their arrival, the words erupting despite his obvious efforts to contain them.

Nebula glared over at the billionaire, and Steve wondered if he should intervene. But the android just rolled her eyes. “Yes. Again, I am certain. This is Titan, restored to its former appearance by Thanos. As I have explained. Multiple times.”

Tony threw himself back in his chair and pouted. “It was all just so red before.”

Rocket glanced up from a nearby console. “Looks like he fixed the moon, too, fancy man.”

Tony shot him a dirty look and continued to perform a sulk. Standing beside Steve, Thor cleared his throat. “How long until we reach the surface?”

The raccoon shrugged as his paws danced over various keyboards. “Depends on what’s waiting for us. If there’s no shield and no interception, I reckon twenty minutes.”

“Excellent. Then proceed, dear rabbit,” Thor said, and unconsciously shifted his grip on his ax. Steve could tell the Asgardian was nervous; linking a new planet to the Bifrost had not been done since the early days of Odin’s rule, and with his home destroyed and his people scattered, Thor had a lot to figure out all on his own. At least he had Bruce with him for support. And even if the Asgardian failed to bring the secondary team from Earth, the strike team’s job remained much the same.

Locate the target, assess the situation, devise a plan.

Then take Thanos out.

But landing without detection was the first and most critical step. Thankfully the Wakandan stealth shield Shuri had developed had suitably impressed both Rocket and Nebula, enough for them to spend a week outfitting the _Benatar_ and testing the technology’s limits. Granted, Rocket had made some digs about how no one in space would ever think to use such primitive technology and that’s why it was so effective, but after Okoye introduced him to the business end of her spear, his apology to the young Queen had sounded adequately sincere. Shuri had just rolled her eyes and told him to have some manners or she’d personally show him where they kept the trash. Steve’s ears had caught the raccoon muttering something snarky about pandas, but the Queen’s rebuke did manage to shut him up. At least for a few days.

The _Benatar_ trembled imperceptibly under his feet and shook Steve out of his thoughts.

“Entering atmosphere,” Nebula announced.

This was it.

From across the cockpit, Tony caught Steve’s gaze and held it; Steve’s battlefield instincts thrilled with foreboding, remembering Tony’s words from weeks ago. ‘If I go in first and don’t die…’ he’d said. The billionaire hadn’t so much as hinted at the idea since, but his words still haunted Steve. Going into battle with that kind of superstition in his head, who knows what Tony would do. Would be willing to do. If they landed now without incident, it would only strengthen the billionaire’s belief that his mere presence could avert disaster, and Steve found himself halfway wishing for something to swoop out of the air and interrupt them, just a little. Anything to knock some caution back into Tony’s head.

So naturally, nothing happened. They landed safely on the surface without detection, Nebula dropping the ship to the ground without even a bump, and the absence of interference did nothing to ease Steve’s nerves.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one. After they landed, Nebula and Rocket stayed in the cockpit running scans of the local area while Tony, Thor, Bruce and Steve rejoined Clint and Natasha in the larger cargo area. The two spies had already finished up the final equipment checks, and for the next few minutes, there was nothing for the strike team to do but wait. Steve looked around. There had been an awkward moment back on Earth when he’d first realized the initial team was going to include only the original Avengers, but considering they hadn’t fought together since Sokovia, having a kind of reunion now felt nice. Felt fitting, being here together in this terrible now.

But the current taut silence that lay over them was kinda killing him. Steve had never actually asked why Fury had named them the Avengers, but surely even Fury had never anticipated how truly - how _universally_ \- they would have to live up to the name. As if everything in their lives had inevitably led up to this moment, the job not just another mission but some grand confluence of destiny. He was as ready as he could be, Steve thought. His body felt strong and rested. His mind felt focused and calm. In the inner space the Captain was waiting. But even there, in the most stable place he knew, Steve could feel a lurking terror underneath, a barely suppressed tremble that warned of the hell to come the second he stopped fighting the fear into remission. And looking around, he could see the same in his teammates, the struggle it took just to stand still.

They were over-prepared, he thought in sudden shock. Over-drawn with the knowledge of the impossible stakes in play, the unspeakable price of failure. Steve’s usual trick of an inspiring speech could only serve to wind them up further.

Back in the old days, Tony or Clint would’ve stepped up long before this, cracked a joke, lightened the tension, but the billionaire was frowning at the floor, his mind clearly miles away and traveling at maximum warp, and the archer… Well, Steve hadn’t seen him smile since he’d joined them in Wakanda. Now Clint stood glaring at the door as if Thanos himself was waiting on the other side. Steve glanced at Natasha beside him; she too was studying Clint, her gaze cool with professional detachment. The two of them had volunteered for scout duty, their skills being the best suited to finding Thanos and observing him without detection. Natasha caught Steve looking, gave him a curt nod. On top of locating the target, she would also need to keep Clint’s thirst for vengeance in check, so the archer didn’t kill himself doing something stupid. It was her job within the job. Steve understood.

Thor and Bruce were standing slightly behind the rest. The scientist had one hand on his own chest and one hand on Thor’s, and vice-versa. They both had their eyes closed and were counting breaths together, slow inhales, longer exhales. A fond smile came to his lips as Steve watched the unlikely pair meditate together. Bruce had been instrumental in those early days for getting Thor back on his feet, but truly the scientist had been nothing short of a revelation to Steve in the long weeks since the Devastation. His determination to keep helping in the face of futility was a beacon of reassurance to them all, gently guiding them through the most hopeless days, but more than that, his steady calm had proved by example that it was possible to keep some kind of equilibrium within the madness. Years of practice, he’d quipped once, and Steve had felt a hot sting of tears as he thought about how hard-won that wisdom had been. The scientist’s quick mastery of Jane Foster’s research on the Bifrost had helped Thor plead his case to the others, but for Steve, Bruce’s inclusion on the strike team was already a no-brainer, regardless of the Hulk’s ongoing refusal to emerge.

And once more, it seemed, the scientist was showing him the way. Steve stepped back, bridging the gap between the two and Natasha on his other side. He nudged Bruce’s elbow to get his attention, then when the scientist opened his eyes, Steve raised his right hand and placed it on his own chest. Bruce cottoned on instantly, quirked a half-grin at Steve and reached out to place his left hand on Steve’s chest. Thor opened his eyes at the motion, also catching on, and poked Tony on his other side; the billionaire was startled but instantly joined in once he saw what they were doing. Steve raised his left hand towards Natasha, let her guide it into place over her heart. There was one long moment - when Clint finally looked around, saw the space kept for him in the circle, stared narrow-eyed at Natasha’s offered hand - where Steve thought the archer was going to refuse the gesture. Please, Steve thought. Please. But eventually, Clint too stepped in, placed his left hand over Tony’s heart, and for a long minute they all stood gently, eyes closed, breathing as one. Inhale and exhale.

Steve opened his eyes, wanting to sneak a look at their faces, watched as one by one they had the same idea, met his gaze, each other’s. Only Tony still had his eyes closed, directly opposite him, and Steve let himself look at the billionaire’s face, let himself savor the sight. Job within the job. Tony opened his eyes, looked around at everyone else. Then Steve. Only Steve.

Peace, Steve thought. Home, and peace.

A few minutes later, Nebula announced it was time to disembark, and, still attuned as one, they broke the circle, busying themselves with their individual equipment. No one said anything, because nothing needed to be said.

Nothing left, but the job.

 

Avenge.

 

***

 

From the set of his shoulders to the clench of his jaw, Steve was radiating upset all the way across the camp, and Tony stifled the urge to drop everything and rush over. It was his turn to wash the day’s dishes - a job that required a full decontamination procedure here in this alien biosphere, just in case - and Steve would be the first to scold him for not finishing his share of the chores. Tony let himself hurry, but by the time the last dish was through the steamer and properly stowed, the super-soldier was busy chopping firewood, which was Steve for “my muscles need to yell now”. There was an upside to this being Steve’s favorite coping mechanism, as the nights on this particular continent got bitterly cold; despite the apparent absence of any defensive surveillance from Thanos, they were trying to keep their use of tech to a minimum, but everyone agreed a good old-fashioned campfire would pose little risk of detection. If every campsite in the past eight weeks had had a woodpile that tended towards excessive, then no one was about to complain.

Instead of interrupting Steve and his muscles, Tony sought out Shuri. The Queen was sitting with Okoye and Bruce, the adults teaching her how to peel and prepare some local edible ahead of the evening meal. After Thor’s success with the Bifrost had gone undetected by anything on Titan, they had taken full advantage of the Asgardian’s ability to shuttle team members back and forth to Earth, letting the Titan team avail of instant healing - the wildlife here was mean - or just take some rest. Only Tony and Steve so far hadn’t returned, out of the original team, and this was Shuri’s first day on the alien planet. She’d been arguing for the opportunity since Thor’s first return, but both her age and responsibilities back home had counted against her. Yet as the weeks went by with no sign of Thanos and nothing bar some ugly space critters to offer any danger, the case for keeping the young Queen safe on Earth had weakened to where she’d finally had her way. Now that she was here, it was hard to resist her enthusiasm, really.

Tony sat down without ceremony, slapping Bruce’s knee as a greeting. The scientist nodded his way but both Shuri and Okoye - it turned out the General was from a farming background - were paying rapt attention to his words. With such an audience, nothing could break Bruce’s excited babble of observations thus far on Titan’s native flora and how its alien biology was reflected in the fauna they’d so far encountered, using the lumpy plant they were peeling as an example. Tony rolled his eyes; internally, because friends. But no one should be this excited over a space potato.

Eventually, Bruce and Okoye moved away to light the evening fire, and Shuri followed Tony’s gaze to where Steve and his muscles were still - _still_ \- yelling at said native flora. At least today he was using the ax.

“Is that… normal?” the young Queen asked.

“I would say no,” Tony said. “But it’s kinda the usual. More so whenever he’s on edge.” He watched Shuri carefully. She’d been the last to talk to Steve before he’d gone full Lumber-Jack Torrance, so she probably knew more than he did about what was happening right now.

The Queen frowned but kept her thoughts to herself, instead looking up at the sky, perhaps noticing the lack of evening gloom. Night fell here like it did near the Equator back home; suddenly, with little ceremony, but the comparison ended there. Oh, sure, with the similar atmosphere the stars above twinkled much the same, but the unfamiliar constellations unnerved him, and Tony still felt a deep resistance snarl within him whenever the second moon rose in the sky; as if it was the one trespassing, not he.

Enough. “So you and Steve were having quite the conversation,” Tony probed. “Care to share?”

The young Queen eyed him, sharp with teenage knowing. “How about you ask him yourself.”

Tony shrugged. “Oh, I’ll ask. Just wanna know how hard I should push if he won’t answer.” Shuri just raised an eyebrow, and Tony sighed. One possibility made more sense than the rest. “It’s his blood, right?” he said quietly.

Shuri shot him a cool-it glance that she must have learned from her mother, but eventually she nodded. “I finally had a couple days to complete the analysis on his sample. The serum… I believe it was originally based on the same elixir that grants the Black Panther their powers.”

“Wait, what?” Tony asked, stunned. “How?”

“I don’t know. Likely the herb was stolen, or maybe sold by one of our own. The enhancements to Captain Rogers’ abilities follow the elixir’s basic pattern. But it seemed the Europeans further enhanced its effects with gamma radiation. Somehow this made the changes permanent, irreversible.” Shuri hesitated, looking over at where Bruce and Okoye were feeding the newly kindled fire. “But now I cannot synthesize a new serum without the herb itself. I have tried everything I can think of, but the herb’s magical properties are beyond my understanding. It’s just… it’s not possible.” Her voice trembled, a rare crack in her usual confident demeanor. “Despite my hopes, my brother will truly be the last champion of Wakanda. And then the Black Panther will be no more.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tony said, and he meant it. The young Queen’s mind was the most brilliant he’d ever known, but he knew all too well how bitter failure could taste for someone so used to success. No wonder Steve was upset. He’d seemed genuinely invested in helping her.

“Yeah, well…” Shuri shrugged, clearly trying not to show how much the setback pained her. “Hopefully the other me will figure something out.”

“I know she will,” Tony said, and that won a smile from the young Queen. “And if it’s magic you need, maybe the wizard can help you out. Talk to Nebula and Thor. Whoever goes, they can bring the message back to him.”

“Only if they survive,” Shuri muttered, and Tony winced at the razor-sharp truth in her words. Rocket had told them how close the Guardians had come to dying using just the Power Stone. Since Vision had used the Mind Stone for years without any negative effects, Tony believed Nebula’s synthetic body stood an excellent chance of wielding all six Infinity Stones without disintegrating, and he reckoned her mind would hold together through the power of pure spite. On the other hand, Thor had shrugged off a direct blast from a star without a scratch, so even if the android failed in her vengeance, the Asgardian would be on hand to attempt the Devastation’s undoing.

They had argued the options back and forth, but all had eventually agreed that going back in time to confront Thanos too early would be a mistake; two functional Gauntlets pitted against each other could annihilate the Earth in the blink of an eye. No, they had to target the moment after Thanos snapped his fingers, the moment after his Gauntlet cracked into a smoking, tenuous mess, but just before the Titan stepped through a portal and left the living half of the universe to their ruin. In that moment, when Thanos was distracted with victory, their fully working Gauntlet should surprise the Titan, should let its wielder take him out without any collateral damage. Only then would they proceed to undo the Devastation, hopefully intervening before all the doomed souls vanished, then bringing back whoever had already been lost.

Yet destruction was always easier than creation; the level of energy that would need to be unleashed to remake life… that may not be survivable for anyone. None of them mentioned it out loud, but they all knew. Going back may cost everything. But maybe that would be better, given the horrors of these past months. For no one to remember.

A hand on his shoulder startled Tony out of his dark thoughts. Bruce.

“Steve’s fetching water,” the scientist told him, a slight smile of apology for making him jump. “Figured he might need some help.”

Tony was already on his feet. “I’ll go.”

Bruce laughed, already turning away. “No kidding.”

The billionaire pulled a face at the scientist’s back but spared no time in crossing the campsite and descending the steep slope towards the nearby river. It was weirdly heartening to find water was water, even in space. Plus the microbial life here was different enough to Earth microbes that they had no discernible effect on human physiology so far, meaning they could drink the water and probably not die in some gruesome Hollywood way. They purified it anyway, just in case, but it was nice to know.

Tony found the trail down to the water and followed it without much difficulty, this being their eighth day at this particular location. As he approached their usual barrel-filling rock, he saw the three large containers sitting empty nearby, but no sign of Steve. He frowned, looking around, trying to suppress the usual stab of nerves that signaled something was not as expected, then closed his eyes and tried to listen to the forest around him. Steve’s trick, from his war days. Granted, it was slightly harder to discern the relative normality of sounds in an alien ecosystem, but the surrounding wildlife were busily chattering away in their strange knocking version of birdsong, and it was silence that Steve had always warned him about. So, there was probably not a space bear, about to eat him.

The billionaire opened his eyes and next studied the muddied ground, pacing back and forth. He found a set of Steve-sized footprints that looked fresh, pointing towards the river and he followed the trail to a flat rock right on the water’s edge. Just as he peered into the water, a great shape erupted violently from below the surface - space shark? - and Tony unceremoniously fell on his ass, the nanobots swirling around him for protection.

A snort of giggles erupted from the water, and Tony rolled his eyes inside the armor. “For fuck’s sake, Steve, get outta there.”

The super-soldier splashed some water at him in playful refusal, then lay on his back, floating peacefully. The water was calm here by the shore, but deep. Deep enough for sharks. Sharks that could eat people.

Tony stood, but kept the suit activated. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“Nah. Worked up a sweat with the logs, wanted to cool off,” Steve explained, his words casual despite his current state of being a person that space sharks could eat without any warning or effort.

“So what, throwing yourself into an alien river unsupervised was the only possible option?” Tony asked, tone biting.

Steve sent a grin in his direction, looking offensively cheerful. “Felt like the right thing to do.”

“Right doesn’t mean not-stupid,” the billionaire snapped, then gritted his teeth, not wanting to literally order the super-soldier back to shore but too uneasy to stand around waiting either. “Ugh whatever, you do you, but Bruce wants water so…” He let his words trail off as he grabbed one of the empty containers and dipped it into the water, forcing out the air bubbles. The suit made the job easy, even on his own, and he hoisted the full container out of the river without any difficulty. He grabbed the second and dunked it too in the water, but as he picked it up, the container was propelled from below by Steve. Staggering back under the unexpected momentum, Tony swung the container safely to one side and turned back to find an annoyed Steve dripping on his rock.

White t-shirt. Very wet.

Tight.

The super-soldier was staring down at the armor and frowning - no, _pouting_ \- and suddenly Tony was very glad of the nanobots encasing him, preserving his dignity.

“Take it off,” Steve ordered, which in _no way_ helped.

It took Tony a long moment to manage a reply, which sounded a bit like, “hhnrgh?”

Steve glared at his visor and flicked his fingers against the armor’s chest. “Take off the armor. You steer, I carry, remember?”

Tony’s mind took off in so many directions at once that all higher brain function tangled itself to a halt, but luckily - luckily? - Steve had already stepped away to grab the last empty container. His muscles rippled visibly underneath his white t-shirt - water makes wet, Tony’s genius mind observed - as the super-soldier hoisted the container over his head and looked at him expectantly.

Steering. Right. The billionaire shook his head, and ruthlessly brought his errant thoughts back under control. Not Steve’s fault. Momentary lapse.

He dismissed the armor and crouched in place at the water’s edge, a position that thankfully concealed… the situation. They’d long perfected this maneuver after so many weeks of water duty. Steve lowered the container towards the water, Tony guided it towards the clearest water he could see, watching out for mud or small creatures. Once it was full, Steve pulled it out again. Simple. Ridiculous, really. It really didn’t take two people. Steve could do this blindfolded with one hand tied-

Uh. Singlehandedly.

But the super-soldier swore he needed the help, every time, and by now Tony had gotten in the habit of providing it. And he liked the simplicity, he supposed. With the last container filled, Steve shot Tony a smug grin before hoisting a second one onto his other shoulder and setting off towards the camp.

Tony watched him go, strangely reluctant to follow right away, and for reasons beyond what was happening in his pants. Because sure, he’d had… lapses before. Going on years, really. Moments of appreciation in a Steve-ish direction. Obviously. Look at the man. But it was just biology, he’d always reasoned. Accidental stimuli. Nothing Steve was _doing_. Therefore it didn’t mean anything. Maybe if he had been single he would have paid more attention, wouldn’t have just shrugged and let it go, but he had been blessed with Pepper long before he met Steve. She was his whole life. And somehow, failing to save her and half of all life in the universe had kinda killed off his libido, so. The whole Steve thing had not been a problem thus far.

But. Now?

Really. _Now_? With the situation on Titan so fragile, Steve still clinging desperately to him every night as they slept, and Tony halfway losing the ability to breathe whenever the super-soldier left his sight? This was no time for… complications. Setting aside the minor issue that was Steve’s total lack of interest in men who weren’t Barnes, once this future was erased, they’d both forget everything anyway. And it felt worse somehow, knowing that they’d both forget. If in some universe they ever did… get complicated… he thought it would deserve to be remembered. At least, Tony would want to remember. Steve probably just wanted to get back to Barnes. Just as Tony would go back to Pepper.

Back to his real life.

Back to hating Steve.

No. Better just to let it go. Simpler. Easier.

The silence, when he finally noticed it, rang an alarm bell throughout his body, and a buzzing awareness on his neck told him he was already being watched. Tony redeployed the armor, sending the nanobots sneaking down his sleeves so as not to alert his observer. He bent down as if to lift the last container, moving as casually as he usually did, then swiveled quickly to his blind side, repulsors at the ready.

Too late. Natasha already had a blade at his throat, a victory smile on her lips. “Honey, we’re home.”

“Fuck you too, Romanoff,” Tony breathed, then enveloped her in a bear hug. She and Clint had been gone a full week this time, and he hadn’t gotten any better at not worrying.

The archer emerged from the trees nearby, and Tony paused, his instincts still at full alert. All of their previous expeditions had ended in frustration, disappointment. This energy felt different, confirmed when Barton almost smiled. Holy shit. “We found him, Tony,” Barton said.

Hardly daring to believe, Tony looked back at Natasha, and she nodded, fire in her eyes.

“We found Thanos.”

 

 


	5. Desperation

_desperation_

/dɛspəˈreɪʃn/

NOUN

_1\. a surrender to hopelessness_

_2\. recklessness arising from despair._

 

***

 

It took five full days to complete their preparations, but in the end, the battle was over before it could really begin.

In his arrogance, Thanos had never expected a direct attack here on his home-world, and so they had managed to catch him off-guard, the Gauntlet nowhere to be seen. Once more, Thor had hit him with a chest strike, but this time there was no escape for the Mad Titan. His roars of agonized outrage were now echoing around the small valley in which he’d made his home, but Steve felt a distinct absence of pity for the wounded alien.

Tony landed heavily beside him, his helmet disappearing as he scanned Steve anxiously head to toe. “Hey, you okay?” the billionaire asked.

“I’m good,” Steve said. And he really was; Thanos had landed a couple of hits, but he could feel the damage healing already.

Tony stared at him as if deciding whether to believe his words, then glanced around and shook his head. “I don’t…” He looked back at Steve. “Did we just win?”

Steve laughed out loud, the sound surprising even himself. “I guess we did.”

The billionaire stood still, thinking. “Kinda an anti-climax, if I’m honest.”

“I’ll take it,” Steve whispered, and the realization crashed down upon him that maybe it was nearly over, that the universe was really going to be saved. The horrors undone. “Tony,” he tried, and his eyes were blurring, his knees weak. The Captain was furious; Thanos wasn’t dead yet, they still had to secure the area, neutralize his Gauntlet, retrieve the Stones. Still so much to do. But this first battle was over, and despite his worst fears, they had lost no one, and Tony was okay.

Tony was okay.

“Easy, Cap,” Tony was murmuring in his ear, easily supporting his weight with the armor’s assistance. Always strong. “Let’s just take a minute, then we gotta get to work.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Yeah.” But he didn’t move until the full minute was up, and neither did Tony.

Just as they stepped apart, Natasha emerged from the nearby hut and waved them over. “Cap, Tony, you need to see this.”

They followed her inside. Rocket was standing a respectful distance from Thanos’ Gauntlet. Tony let out a low whistle once he caught sight of it. “Guess that’s why he left it on the shelf.”

Steve had been a little bit distracted for Thanos’ departure from Wakanda, but the Gauntlet seemed much more severely damaged than Thor had described. Deep cracks had emerged between the six glowing Stones, and the metal shards seemed a breath away from falling apart.

Rocket was creeping closer, his eyes wide in fascination. “Restoring Titan must have compounded the original damage. Looks like it’s damn near about to explode.” Inexplicably, the raccoon giggled. “ All the power in the universe, and he couldn’t even risk picking it up. What a shambles.”

“Can we remove the Stones safely?” Steve asked.

Rocket shrugged. “I’d advise watching from a safe distance, something like the next solar system. But what choice do we have?”

Steve took a moment, considering. “Alright. Leave it alone for now. We’ll evacuate non-essentials to Earth, then give it a try.”

The raccoon tossed him a lazy salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”

Getting sassed by a rodent would have been one of the top things Steve missed about this future, if he could miss anything about this future. As it turned out, time travel via Infinity Stone was nothing like the movies, with their alternate timelines and, uh, something about a cartoon man and donuts? Tony had tried to explain it once. Basically a wormhole or quantum machine could theoretically create a tunnel back to the past and let someone travel through, but the future they left would continue to exist independently, even if the traveller’s individual experience branched off into an alternative future.

In contrast, the power of the Time Stone was so unthinkably vast that it could instead rewind all branches of time simultaneously, not just for one person, but _everywhere_. All possible futures after that point would be undone. Tony had carefully suggested that Nebula or Thor could, in fact, preserve this future if the rest of them wished to survive, but the idea of continuing on in this brutal reality with just a vague hope that things were better _somewhere else_ had left Steve shuddering. Luckily he wasn’t the only one; in the end everyone had agreed that it was better to let go. Better to forget.

All Steve could do was hope they’d get it right the next time.

For now, the Captain had his own job to do. Steve left Thanos’ cracked Gauntlet under the capable protection of Natasha and Rocket, ducking out of the hut’s low doorway and blinking in the harsh noon sunlight. He was aware of Tony following him out, a little surprised that the billionaire wasn’t choosing to stay and nerd out with the others.

High overhead, Rhodey passed by, his nanotech suit gleaming in the sun. “Area is secure, Cap,” he announced over the comms. “Looks like we’re free and clear for phase two.”

“Already?” Steve answered, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice, and Tony snorted. “I mean, yes, understood, proceed to phase two.”

The billionaire was smirking at him when he looked up. “See? Anti-climax,” Tony remarked, then ducked away laughing as Steve reached out to cover his mouth. Safely beyond his reach, Tony activated his wrist device and began his report to a tiny holographic Shuri.

Fate-tempting jokes aside, Tony was right. Steve’s unspent energy was still crackling throughout his body; in battle, his senses always upped a gear, deepening the world beyond vision and touch and hearing to something operatic and harmonious. It was like there was a constant dance of poetic existence all around him, a deeper reality that he could only access in small doses without bursting, but the beauty he found there somehow provided a path he could follow all the way home. It was how art made him feel, at its best. During a fight, it’s what kept him alive.

Now, deprived of a crisis, he felt scrubbed raw, all of his senses flooded open, and the super-soldier clenched his teeth at the discomfort. He had to keep it together. There was too much to do. He could not get distracted now.

Steve tore his gaze away from Tony’s profile, just in time. The billionaire lowered his wrist and turned to him, his dark eyes sparkling. “Scooby Gang are on their way.”

“Good,” Steve said, then looked towards their next problem. Tony followed his gaze, his tension evident. Steve hesitated. “You don’t have to come with me.” The billionaire flicked a glance back at him, a quirk of his lips showing his displeasure at that idea. Oops. Steve spread his hands in surrender. “Just throwing it out there.”

Tony glared at him and flounced away, as Steve probably should have expected. He hurried to catch up, falling into step with Tony so they approached Thanos together.

The Mad Titan was still on the ground and struggling just to breathe, the air bubbling strangely around the ax still embedded in his chest. Thor had a wild intensity in his eyes as he watched his prisoner, a feverish anticipation matched only by Clint who waited nearby, an enhanced vibranium arrow at the ready. Thanos was feathered with more than a few already, proving the worth of Shuri’s design.

Thanos opened his eyes at their approach, a distorted grin spreading across his face. “…Stark? Is that you?”

Steve’s heightened awareness caught Tony’s flinch, but the billionaire pushed forward regardless. Always brave. “Sure is.”

The Mad Titan sucked in another breath with difficulty. “I’m… sorry… I… let you live…”

“Yeah gotta say, that was a weird choice.” Tony was doing his trademark babbling-in-the-face-of-evil thing, sounding supremely confident. Hiding his fear so well. “Guess arrogance is a universal super-villain problem. I mean, look around, Crusoe. You didn’t think we’d come for you? That someone in the universe would fight back?”

“…hoped,” Thanos wheezed, his eyes drifting closed. “Hoped it was… done.” The Mad Titan panted, opened his eyes. “Stark… You must know… There was no other way.”

That shook Tony enough that he retreated a step and looked wide-eyed at Steve, who stepped forward. “You wiped out half of all life in the universe,” the super-soldier said, keeping his voice slow and even. “Tell me why.”

“Save them,” Thanos whispered, eyes rolling shut again.

Steve found that idea infuriating, and judging from the expressions he saw around him, he was not the only one. “The only thing they needed saving from is you,” Clint hissed, and Steve saw his hands trembling with outrage.

Thanos was shaking his head. “Too many… people. Finite resources. Collapse… inevitable, unless someone… Someone had to…” He broke off, coughing, and Steve tried to get a grip on his own anger.

Apparently Tony was done trying, as the billionaire stepped closer still, incandescent with wrath. “But people are not _equations_ , you can’t just cancel out countless living beings and expect the survivors to carry on like nothing happened. As if their loss wouldn’t affect everything that came after. That collapse you wanted to prevent so bad? Congratulations, it’s happening right now instead. But because of you, it’s happening _everywhere_ , all at once. Do you understand what that means? All you did was _make it harder to help each other_.”

Tony took a breath, glanced back at Steve, refocused on Thanos. “But you know what? Fuck you, pal. People will find a way to survive. That’s what we do. We survive and rebuild and maybe we only get through by adding some shiny new traumatic chapters to the history books but hey, guess what? So long as there’s people, you can’t stop us living, can’t stop us loving each other and going forth and multiplying and that means at some point generations from now we’ll be facing the exact same problem, same as if you did nothing. What you did wasn’t just cruel, wasn’t just evil; it was _bad math_. And look at what it has cost.”

“Everything,” Thanos moaned, sounding defeated. “You’re… right, Stark. You’re right.” For a moment, everyone held their breath. Then the Mad Titan twisted his lips into a grin. “I should have done more.”

And Steve saw the attack play out in his mind, movie-clear, even before Thanos grasped the arrow buried in his thigh, wrenched it free, sent its impossibly sharp edge hurtling towards Tony’s unprotected neck.

Here it is, he thought, even as he leapt forward, even as he swung his arm up, even as he knew his shield would not, could not get there in time. God, no, please not him, he thought, and he kept thinking it, praying even as the hot blood ran, even as Clint’s ready arrow thudded home through Thanos’ wrist, even as Thor dragged the laughing Titan further away with a wordless roar of fury, even through Thanos’ repeated shouts; “I should have killed you, Stark. I should have killed you too.”

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” Tony was saying over and over, both of them sinking to the ground. Always his. Then the pain arrived, and Steve sucked in a breath, high on relief because the pain meant that he’d made it in time. Brown eyes. Beautiful. Safe. Angry.

Tony was cursing at him now, scared fingers pressing down on the wound on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve wanted to tell him that it was fine, that if half a century of ice couldn’t do the job then a simple arrow wouldn’t kill him. Instead he watched quietly as Tony took care of him, as both the blood and the swearing slowed to a trickle and stopped.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked eventually, and Tony met his gaze before barking a short, ugly laugh.

“You’re asking me?” The billionaire shook his head, still visibly upset. “You’re the one with a Titan-grade arrow stuck through your shoulder.”

Steve looked it over. Clean in and out. No problem. “Not for long.” Tony made a face but didn’t stop him as Steve broke the end off the arrow and pushed the rest clear through. The pain was a blaze of wildfire, but it passed, and Tony was waiting on the other side. There was a smear of Steve’s blood on the billionaire’s face, a look of which Steve did not approve, and Tony held still while Steve wiped it away.

“Better?” the billionaire asked softly.

Steve nodded, then looked around. Thor had moved Thanos about fifty metres away, and apparently Clint was taking no more chances; the Mad Titan was now pinned with multiple arrows through his limbs as he slumped against a nearby tree. Steve waited for some part of him to protest the inhumane treatment of a dying prisoner, but apparently no such part was left. The arrow had at least given his body something to focus on, a channel for his excess energy, and he felt strangely relieved. With the outer signs of his wound was already closing, Steve struggled to his feet. Tony stepped in close to help, and stayed close.

Steve marched towards Thanos again, his stride steadying as his body distanced itself further from the shock. The Mad Titan watched the two of them approach. The Captain planted his feet before his enemy and crossed his arms, refusing to acknowledge the flare of pain the motion caused.

“Congratulations on adding one more failure to your list,” Steve said. Petty, but whatever.

Thanos bared his teeth back at him, arrogant to the end. “My success… outweighs all possible failures…”

“Yeah, about that; no, not once we go back and undo everything,” Tony spoke up beside him. Thanos stared from one of them to the next, a dark understanding dawning on his face. “What, you think you’re the only one with a magic glove? Except ours is in much better shape, and now, thanks to you, we have the Infinity Stones.”

The Mad Titan closed his eyes and bowed his head, overcome by trembling.

“You have failed, Thanos,” Steve said. “In every way possible.”

“It’s done, Kool-Aid. You lose,” Tony added.

The trembling increased; Thanos looked up, and Steve realized with a sick jolt that the Mad Titan was _laughing_. “Oh Stark,” he managed to whisper. “I won’t be… the only one…”

Steve looked at Tony, who, equally baffled, merely shrugged in response, yet a hint of ice took hold in the Captain’s stomach, a pit of dread that there could be something he had overlooked, some unseen avenue for disaster that he had forgotten to account for, a threat that would reach out and devour them all. No, Steve thought, prayed. _No_. He had to remember that Thanos was defeated, desperate; chances were he’d say anything he could think of just to spoil their victory.

Enough. Steve held out his right hand to Tony who accepted it instantly; by mutual unspoken agreement they turned their backs on the laughing Titan and walked away without a second glance.

Still, it took a minute or so before Steve trusted himself to speak. Luckily Tony had no such trouble, chattering wildly about his plans to have Pepper buy up every candy corporation on Earth just so he could ban all the purple ones.

“Not the only one,” Steve murmured aloud and shivered, unnerved by the Titan’s words.

Tony squeezed his fingers and Steve looked down, surprised to find their hands were still united. “Don’t let the Great Grape Ape get in your head, Cap. We got this.”

Steve opened his mouth to quarrel but a loud rumble overhead cut him off. He shaded his hand over his eyes to see Rhodey had returned and was escorting the _Benatar_ in to land. Good. It had taken a lot to convince Nebula to hang back for the initial confrontation, but she’d agreed it was necessary for someone to protect their replica Gauntlet, and who better than its appointed wielder? The android had only requested that Thanos be kept alive until she arrived, if possible. He hoped she’d be pleased at their success.

Tony by his side, Steve walked halfway to the landing zone, saw Bruce, Okoye and Shuri safely disembark, and waved them towards the hut. Nebula took longer to emerge. Steve knew this had to be a difficult moment for her, but she showed no outward sign of distress. The android nodded to them both, then swept off towards Thanos. It was time. Tony kept pace beside Steve as they followed Nebula to where the wounded Titan lay.

Nebula stopped in front of Thanos, stared down at him. The Mad Titan opened his eyes, squinted up at her. “You,” he breathed, and the scorn that dripped from his tone fell like a lash.

Remarkably, Nebula did not flinch, but only raised her chin higher. “Me,” she said, hatred and satisfaction mingling in her voice. And then she reached down, twisted the ax and dragged it from his chest. Thanos howled once in outrage, then again in animal despair, but all his renowned strength, all of his foul will could not delay the inevitable rush of life from his body. They watched, silent, as the Mad Titan took one last tormented breath, then fell still.

Thanos was dead.

And when Nebula crumpled to the ground, sobbing, Tony stepped away to comfort her, letting Steve’s hand go. The simple loss of contact should not have troubled Steve so; Tony was right there before him, Steve could see he was alive and safe; yet somehow without Tony’s warmth his hand felt cold, like danger, like death, wrong enough that Steve raised his hand before him to check it was still there; the ice spread through him, ink-dark despair devouring the warmth of the sun, and so when the shouts that heralded trouble broke out, the Captain was not, in the end, surprised.

 

***

 

By the time Rhodey pulled him aside and asked if he was okay, it took everything left in Tony not to scream. That made it seven since breakfast alone; seven individual people stopping to check up on him, as if they all didn’t have something better to do, more important, more useful. But once more he swallowed his frustration, nodded, smiled. He even summoned up a joke and a wink, enough to send his best friend away comforted.

Truth was, Tony was still stunned by how quickly their supposed victory had fallen apart. Crumbled away in their hands like- he shut down that line of thinking. Rationally, he knew no one could have anticipated the disappearance of the Soul Stone, but emotionally he still struggled to comprehend that it was really gone. And the person responsible was dead. Laughing, he thought. Funny. He may be further away from okay than he was from Earth.

They had talked for hours, after. Ideas, plans, hopes. Stepping up, as he always did, Steve had badgered and commanded every one of them to contribute, despite the shock and disappointment that circled just beyond the campfire, and as he always did, the Captain carried them through the long night. Tony hadn’t said much. It was too hard to think, echoes of laughter in his head. Steve hadn’t pushed. He was the only one Steve hadn’t pushed. Instead, Steve had let Tony stay curled quietly against his side; in exchange he’d listened, and he’d mostly kept up, and even said some things towards the end. Throughout the hours he’d also watched the trees, had studied the way the firelight danced against the restless foliage, tossing and turning as if the air itself was a living thing, wild and free.

Once the team had reached a consensus on their next moves, they’d turned in, and this time Steve had curled around Tony for comfort; he’d held the super-soldier close until the trembling stopped, and then, probably, they’d both slept. Morning brought a strong breeze, hectic leaves, more of the same bad dream he was beginning to realize was just life now. Also low voices. Pity glances. Tony had always known he was the weak link of the team, and now everyone else knew it too. He didn’t care, and thought it a bad sign. Empty.

Beside him, Steve stood and the automatic hush fell. Good old Capsignal.

“Good morning,” the super-soldier started, then faltered when Tony started to laugh, because that was a really excellent joke. No one else laughed. More glances. Steve’s hand on his shoulder. He was being problematic. Tony stared down at his feet, where the night’s fire was burning out. Ashes, he thought, and shuddered, closing his eyes.

“I’m not gonna lie. Yesterday was a tough day. Maybe the toughest,” he heard Steve say. So close. Now nothing but air. “If anyone needs more time, take it. But no matter the complications, our objective hasn’t changed. Starting today, we move forward.” Tony opened his eyes and watched faces as Steve stared around the group, making eye contact with everyone in turn. Their Captain. “You all know the plan. Let’s get to it.”

Right, the plan. Tony remembered. Shuri, Bruce and Thor were heading back to Earth. There, the Queen would use the Gauntlet’s design to create transport devices for the remaining Infinity Stones, to bring them to Earth for safekeeping. Once Thor was safely off-world, Nebula was going to use the intact Gauntlet to wield the Space Stone. Thanos had found the Soul Stone on a planet called Vormir, and the android had argued there may be some useful information there; maybe they could even find a way to track the missing Stone. Privately, Tony suspected Nebula just wanted to pay her respects to her sister, but he didn’t want to rain on everyone’s optimism parade. The new Gauntlet should be able to handle a single Stone without difficulty, but just in case, Rocket was gonna pile the rest of the team into the _Benatar_ and watch from afar. If Nebula succeeded in using the Space Stone, they’d come back and guard the other Stones until she returned. If she failed, they’d come back and bury what was left of her and wait for Thor’s friend to make a new Gauntlet, then hope Thor had better luck.

As a plan, Tony thought it was good, made sense, was worth doing… except maybe for the utter overwhelming impossibility of them ever figuring out where in the universe Thanos had sent the Soul Stone so everything they tried was doomed and pointless and stupid because there was no hope left, he had failed, he had failed them all and Pepper was dead and Peter was dead and he hadn’t seen it coming, he should have seen it coming, he should have done more while there was still a chance because no matter where he looked for hope there was nothing now but a dead man’s laughter in his head.

Nothing left but ashes in the wind.

Time passed, people said goodbye.

Time passed and he could have been anywhere, but Steve wanted to see Nebula try on the Gauntlet before they left, and so Tony was there in the hut when the android picked up the golden glove and put it on for the first time. Just in case, Eitri had made it also large enough for Thor, but the metal artefact fit over her right hand - for balance, she’d mockingly insisted - as if grown there. Nebula stood tall, gave a curt nod to signal her readiness. Satisfied, Steve made to leave, but Tony hung back, something about the sight deeply bothering him.

“Tony?” Steve asked gently.

Wind over rocks, Tony thought. Empty. Then he shook his head, turned to Steve. “I want to go with her,” he whispered.

That won him a big old Captain’s frown. “Absolutely not,” Steve started, but Tony cut him off.

“She shouldn’t be alone. Not… there.”

“We don’t know whether or not there’s any danger,” Steve said.

Tony shook his head. “If there’s a body.” In his head, red planet, red suit. “No one should face that alone.” He didn’t know the words, couldn’t think through how to say it, to make Steve understand. Bad breeze. Empty echoes.

But the super-soldier was studying him. “Tony, are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked, still gentle yet his doubt so clear.

Tony tried not to take it personally, and mostly succeeded. If anything, being doubted provoked his brain to sharpen up, just to be contrary. “Trust me, I know I’ve been off,” he replied, and truly met Steve’s gaze for the first time since Thanos’ death had scattered their hopes beyond recovery. “I’m so fucked up right now, Steve, I don’t know how I’m still breathing,” he confessed, then tilted his head towards Nebula. “But she was there for me, on Titan. I want to be there for her now. And… I don’t think she’ll accept help from anyone else. So it has to be me. But I can do this, Steve. I promise you. I can do this much.”

Honestly, Tony had expected more of a fuss, but it seemed Steve understood. Maybe he heard it too, the empty waiting for her. Loud and lonely. The super-soldier blew out a breath, looked back at Nebula. “Two minutes,” he said, then ducked out of the hut. Uh. An abrupt goodbye, but efficient, Tony supposed.

The android was staring at the Infinity Stones scattered on the floor. They lay just as they had fallen when Thanos’ Gauntlet had finally cracked into useless shards of metal, his final act of sabotage too much for the device to withstand. Nebula looked up when Tony joined her, a furrow of confusion on her brow.

“So, slight change of plan,” he announced. “Turns out this is a party of two.”

Nebula scowled, still her habitual reaction to any perceived friendliness. “I have not requested your presence on this mission.”

“Nonetheless,” he said, and shrugged. She neither argued nor threatened him, which was her equivalent of a thank-you bouquet.

An unexpected noise at the door brought them both swinging around. Steve. “They’re away, we can proceed whenever you’re ready,” the super-soldier announced. Nebula sniffed and turned back to the Stones, seemingly fine with this development.

Tony snapped his hanging mouth shut. “Uh, who says you were invited?”

“Together,” Steve reminded him with a smirk. Smartass. “Plus I got some breathers from Rocket, just in case.”

Uh... Right. Alien atmosphere. Good idea. Tony rewarded Steve with a proud smile. “Well, pour one out for the teacher’s pet.”

“Who, me or the raccoon?” Steve teased, and Tony was so giddy with relief that he actually laughed.

“Can you two step back and let me get on with this?” Nebula complained. Oh right. Potential instant death looming, if the Gauntlet failed. Tony had nearly forgotten that part, and he considered summoning his suit, but this close, it wouldn’t make much difference. He did briefly regret that Steve was not on the _Benatar_ speeding safely away, but then the super-soldier pulled him into his side, held him tight, and Tony thought that maybe this would be better, either way.

Nebula took a deep breath, then reached out with the Gauntlet and picked up the blue Space Stone, careful not to touch any of the others. After a few seconds of no reaction, she transferred it to her bare left hand, then quickly brought the Stone towards the nodes on the Gauntlet’s smooth surface. The Space Stone snapped itself into place and Nebula cried out as an eerie blue light pulsed underneath her skin. It increased to an unbearable brightness, but right when Tony started to worry, the glow settled, and the android was left standing, the Space Stone safely installed on the Gauntlet. Easy breezy.

“Congratulations,” Steve called out; Nebula scowled, but ducked her head in acknowledgment.

“How does it feel?” Tony asked, deeply curious. Like they’d hoped, her synthetic body was showing no signs of rejection or damage, which was a good sign for the endgame.

The android considered the question. “As though I can feel my shadow, but it stretches all the way across the galaxy, and beyond.”

He had expected a far more boring answer. “Uh, cool?”

“Nevermind, are you ready to leave?” she asked.

Steve had been busy strapping down his shield, and now handed Tony one of Rocket’s breathers. He put it on before he summoned the Iron Man armor, letting the nanobots swarm over the alien device without impeding its function. After checking Steve’s breather was correctly in place, Tony turned to Nebula and nodded. “Ready.”

They walked outside the hut. Nebula closed her eyes and the Space Stone flared a searing blue, then just like that, Tony was looking at a portal to another planet. It appeared markedly different to the big-ass puff of blue smoke Thanos had vanished through, more like a blurry doorway ringed with blue fire, but when he mentioned the smoke Nebula just sniffed. “Sounds undignified.”

Drawn out of his misery by the novelty, Tony took a full lap for a better view, noticing how it looked like the portal could be entered from the back as well as the front. In a time of magical apocalypses such a detail should not have creeped him out, but wow, it _totally_ creeped him out. “But how can you know where to point it if you’ve never gone there from here?” he asked, rejoining the others.

“How can you know where your toe is if it’s hidden in a shoe?” Nebula countered, then shook her head. “Inaccurate, but the sensation is comparable. Further explanation is redundant.” And she stormed through the portal as if embarrassed.

Vormir turned out to be a morbid slump of a planet, seemingly perched on the perpetual edge of twilight. The land was a maze of shallow puddles between dunes of black sand, the sky above eerily lit by an eclipse stuck on the brink of totality. Luckily, it had human compatible air so Tony and Steve could throw the breathers back through the portal before Nebula closed it.

It had taken the team weeks to find their target on Titan, and that was when they had known what they were looking for; as they set off across the anonymous plain Tony was prepared for Vormir to be a disappointment, but after just a few minutes, Nebula called a halt.

“I…” the android trailed off. “I feel… something.” She clenched her fist and the Space Stone emitted a faint blue glow in response, the color traveling up her arm in short pulses, its energy diffusing under her synthetic skin. The effect would be pretty, if it weren’t so terrifying to think of the damage such power would do to an organic body.

Nebula hesitated, then gestured and another portal opened. Steve had been oddly quiet since their arrival and even now seemed preoccupied, so Tony stepped through first, repulsors ready. At first he found nothing but the same gloomy view, but then he turned and saw the single tall mountain peak rising over them.

“Got something,” he announced, and the others joined him.

“There,” Nebula breathed as soon as she saw the mountain. “I think… we must go there.” The blue glow was visibly pulsing under her skin, and Tony exchanged a long suspicious look with Steve. But it was the best lead they had.

In the end, they climbed.

Tony was full of complaints, had suggested the android open a portal to the top of the mountain so they could walk down instead. Nebula had refused, saying it wouldn’t feel right. That there was something waiting. Something… holy. That revelation had shut Tony up. Mostly from the existential crisis it had provoked. Finding someone or something had cut a trail around the mountainside hadn’t helped.

Steve hadn’t said much on the climb, but as they’d gained altitude, he’d stepped closer and closer, now near enough to Tony that their shoulders kept touching. The billionaire welcomed the contact, even through the suit. It was weirdly challenging to be an atheist on a space pilgrimage. Yet he had to admit, with his mind busy chewing on theories of intergalactic spiritualism and his body engaged in simple but steady exercise, Tony felt much improved from his earlier numbness. Even felt kinda hungry, which was all kinds of gloriously mundane.

They had just reached a narrow part of the trail when Steve signaled for them all to halt. Nebula did not notice or care, and kept walking. A shadow floated oddly into her path, and as Steve leapt forward, shield high, Tony aimed his repulsor at the overhang above, ready to bury whatever it was at the first sign of threat. Nebula finally stopped but just raised her fist, the soft glow of the Space Stone erupting into dazzling brilliance.

In the harsh blue light, the ghastly features of the man before them was a nightmare made flesh, but behind that first aesthetic shock lay another, of something far worse. Recognition. And Tony was not the only one.

“ _Schmidt_?” Steve breathed, lowering his shield almost to the ground. Somehow Tony shook off his own surprise and stepped forward, nanobots ready to launch a defense.

Yet no attack came. “My old enemy,” the faceless man greeted the super-soldier, ignoring all else. “It’s been many years.”

“The… the Tesseract,” Steve stammered. “It brought you here?”

“Yes. In my former life I dared too far and was judged unworthy,” Red Skull said. “My penance now is to serve.” He huffed air through his lipless mouth as if laughing, a grotesque and painful sound. “So much time spent without another soul to speak to, and now twice within the year, I have guests.”

“ _Thanos_. He came here before. Did you meet him?” Nebula demanded.

“Purple guy? Big chin?” Tony added.

Wrenching his eyes away from Steve, Red Skull looked them over, seemingly unimpressed. “Yes, I met him.” Tony felt his heart leap in anticipation. Perhaps the old Nazi knew something. Perhaps he could help.

Yet Nebula was striding forward to confront him, her Gauntlet raised and glowing. “My sister Gamora came with him. Is she here?” The hope in her voice was almost too much to bear. “ _Is my sister alive?_ ”

But they all knew the answer, even before Red Skull confirmed it. “I am sorry for your loss.” Nebula turned away, the blue glow vanishing, and she crossed to the edge of the mountain, staring dully at nothing.

Steve was still visibly shaken, so Tony took point on the questioning. “Okay, Marowak, you’ve been here a minute or ten, so tell us, what is this place?” Red Skull shrugged, his attention still focused on Steve, and only then did Tony notice his feet didn’t touch the ground. In fact, he wasn’t sure the guy had feet at all, which had to be the creepy cherry on the day’s cupcake of creeps.

“Your leader carries the Space Stone, what I once knew as the Tesseract. This is one of six gems…” the faceless man began but Tony rolled his eyes and cut in.

“… called the Infinity Stones, the six best shinies that could, unlimited power, yada yada yada. We know. And we know Thanos got the Soul Stone here. What we want to know is how exactly he did that.”

Red Skull gave him a disinterested glance, then returned to staring at Steve. “That is no mystery. I showed him the way. As was my duty.”

“Sure, cool, just following orders. Cool cool cool. So fun fact, did you know that after Thanos got the Soul Stone, he managed to get his great purple paws on the whole Infinity set, and then he wiped out half of all life in the universe? Earth included, by the by.” The Nazi swung around to look at Tony again. It was hard to read a skull’s expression, but that may have been surprise on his lack-of-face.

“I… was not aware. But my purpose here is not to test the intentions of those who seek the Soul Stone. Only to guide, and inform.”

“You led him to the Soul Stone,” Steve said, Captain’s voice forcibly level. “Can you show us where it was kept?”

Red Skull paused. “I do not understand.”

“I killed Thanos,” Nebula announced; apparently she had been listening. She turned now, her emotions back under control. “At the moment of his death, the Soul Stone vanished. We believe Thanos sent it away to keep it beyond our reach. We seek a way to track it.”

That awful huffing noise emanated from the faceless man again, and Tony suppressed a shudder. Steve was a living picture of fury, raising his shield as if to strike his old nemesis. “You dare laugh?” the super-soldier questioned him, voice lethal.

Red Skull shook his head, raised placating hands. “I do not seek to offend. Truly. But now I understand your quest, I believe I have good news. The Soul Stone is here.”

Steve froze, Nebula gasped, and an electric thrill ran over Tony’s skin, equal parts fear and hope. “How?” he managed, his words thick. “Why?”

Again, Red Skull paused before replying, and the sound of the wind rang through the silence like a warning. “Complete the journey to the summit, and I will answer all of your questions.” The others looked as shocked as Tony felt. There was possibly nothing waiting for them ahead but a trap, yet the possibility of retrieving the Soul Stone was too urgent a temptation. Therefore they had nothing to discuss; after a couple of glances, they fell in beside each other and followed the faceless man along the last stretch of the trail.

Their destination was a wide flat area flanked with two huge pillars with mysterious alien symbols carved into the stone. Nothing moved save the wind blowing a few forlorn specks of snow, and it was the loneliest, saddest place Tony had ever seen. Red Skull led them past the massive pillars, Steve and Nebula silently watching their guide with somewhat murderous expressions. Tony stepped almost to the edge where the mountain dropped steeply away and took a quick glance over. He was usually fine with heights, conveniently, but his stomach lurched at the sight of the stone platform far below. Shaken, he gladly retreated to Steve’s side; the super-soldier was still ominously quiet. Enough stalling.

“Alright, Azkaban,” Tony said, glaring at the faceless man. “You promised us answers, so maybe start with explaining why Thanos would send the Stone back here to you? He tapping you in on the tag team of misery?”

Red Skull shook his head. “You have traveled far in these difficult times so I will not waste words on ceremony, but please understand, the Soul Stone has no keeper; indeed, it can have no true master. Alone among the Infinity Stones, it will lend its power only for a time, and always for a price. Death, as you have seen, is a common path to its release.” He gestured to their surroundings. “To here, then, the Stone always returns; here it dwells, until the next seeker comes. The Stone keeps me here, but not as a valued companion. I am merely a convenient servant, guiding others along a path I myself cannot follow.” He paused. “Any further questions?”

Tony, as always, had an infinite supply of questions, but none were relevant to their current mission and so he shook his head. He supposed he should have been relieved that Thanos had not sabotaged their plan beyond salvage, but something about the idea of an Infinity Stone with _habits_ set his teeth on edge.

“Who among you now seeks the Stone?” the faceless man asked.

Nebula stepped forward. “I do.”

Red Skull regarded her, his voice almost gentle. “To proceed requires a great sacrifice, to prove your strength of will. The one before you made this choice. Yet many turn away, unable to bear the cost. There is no shame in refusal.”

“I will give you anything you ask,” Nebula declared. “My body, my mind, my soul. Name your price.”

The faceless man sighed. “To earn the power of the Soul Stone, you must give up the life of someone you love.”

“ _What?_ ” Steve asked, outraged.

Oh, Tony thought.

Red Skull kept his gaze steady on Nebula. “Do you refuse the sacrifice?”

“I… I do not refuse,” she whispered, her face crumpling. “But how can I… What happens if the one I love is already dead?”

Tony flinched, the ramifications of her words an avalanche through his head.

“Then I am sorry,” the faceless man said. “The terms are absolute. Beloved life is the price. A soul for a soul.”

Tony felt as though he was falling through the ground, the revelation throwing his understanding into new, desperate configurations. So it couldn’t be Nebula. But then… Thor had kept his distance from everyone since losing his people, losing his family. Everyone except Bruce, but… oh god. The Hulk. So it couldn’t be Thor, either. That only left…

There was no other way, the wizard had said, and for the first time Tony understood why he’d sounded so _sorry_.

Steve was yelling at Red Skull. Steve didn’t know.

The super-soldier had stormed forward, was arguing about trading lives and unjust bargains. Tony caught Nebula’s eye, something in his expression drawing her over to his side.

“You’re going to have to hold him back,” Tony told her, and he waited as the revelation slammed home for her too. Hard to watch, but the android rallied. Nodded. Tony took a breath, then walked towards the cliff edge.

“-whoever made these rules deserves to have them broken, there has to be another way-” behind him, he heard Steve cut off, then- “Tony? What the hell are you-”

“Sorry, Cap,” Tony said, and painted a smile on his face before he turned around. “I guess the wizard forgot to mention a couple things.”

Steve stared at him, and - oh _god_ \- Tony could pinpoint the exact moment when the super-soldier understood, could only watch as Steve Rogers’ heart broke. “ _No_.”

“Yes,” Tony said, and how fitting that their last conversation was an argument. He raised his voice. “The price is a life, right? So I do this, Steve gets the Stone. That’s the bargain.”

Red Skull’s stare was almost as intense as Steve’s. “It would seem… Yes.”

Nebula was in place behind Steve; the super-soldier was still too stunned to move. “But… Thor,” Steve managed, yet Tony was already shaking his head.

“Hulk,” he said, then his throat closed up because this was so wrong, so _unfair_ , the wizard’s words were supposed to be a comfort, not a trap; he did not want to die and leave Steve in this lonely place. I don’t want to go, whispered the wind, and Tony felt a dizzying wave of unreality rise through him, threatening to knock him off his feet. He staggered closer to the cliff edge, terrified he would lose his resolve if he stopped to think, would flinch and fail and ruin everything after all. Steve stepped forward as if to follow, but Nebula was ready, and the super-soldier was surrounded by a blue glow that swept him off the ground and held him there, immobile.

That’s when Steve began to scream, wrenching his body in impossible contortions, desperate to escape, to run to him, to stop what was coming. “Tony… Don’t you dare do this… Tony _no_ , please, come back, don’t do this, _please_ , Tony, no…”

He was crying too, but there was nothing else to be done, and so Tony ignored Steve’s pleas. Dismissed the armor. Stood cold in the wind and looked far down to the sharp rocks below, trying to pretend his shaking was from anything but terror.

“ _Please_ , Tony, no, you _promised_ …”

He turned around, wanting Steve to be the last thing he saw. “Bring them home, Cap,” he said.

An unearthly keen beyond words erupted from the super-soldier, still fighting, blue eyes twisted dark with pain. Sorry. So sorry. But he understood now.

No other way.

Tony stepped back.

 

***

 

When Steve Rogers awoke, he found himself lying in a shallow pool so still it was like a mirror of stars, Vormir’s holy mountain a mere smudge on the horizon.

The Soul Stone was a warm orange glow in his hand.

And he was alone.

 


	6. Annihilation

_annihilation_

/ənʌɪɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. the state or fact of being completely destroyed or obliterated_

_2\. total defeat._

 

***

 

When he was first rescued from the ice, people with kind faces kept asking him how much he remembered of the crash. Whether he had been awake when he’d hit the water. If he’d felt the ice. Steve had told them he’d been knocked out on impact, that he hadn’t felt the water rise, that he’d slept through the ice.

All lies.

Steve remembered everything. The sound of air, then water rushing through the cracked glass. The metallic taste of panic, despair. How his lungs had burned as he’d drowned. How they’d kept burning, how he’d kept drowning, unable to die, unable to escape. The cold enveloping him, seeping into him. Then the ice. Tiny shards of agony, white hot splinters of pain as his cells died and were reborn and died and were reborn and died over and over. Destroying him. Creating him.

After he woke, Steve had made a bargain with himself that he was allowed to lie about the ice so long as he managed to leave it behind; besides, he really didn’t want to explain to the kind faces how his mind had stayed awake even through the first wave of freezing, shattering over and over, until something broke and his awareness plunged down a layer to a place beyond words, only pain. Even then, he wasn’t sure he fully stopped _feeling_ , but after enough time - days? weeks? years? - there was not enough of him left to form memories of what he experienced. The absence was itself a gift, he supposed. Proved it could have been worse. And if sometimes he felt a deep cold nothing shift within him - an animal yawning in its sleep, thoughtlessly kicking the edges of his awareness - that was all the more reason not to look back.

For years, he had lived by these terms. Had kept the bargain.

Waking up in such a weird future just felt so much like a dream; another gift from the ice, a fantasy to comfort a dying mind. Oh, he’d believed that he was awake eventually, but a cold, lonely part of Steve had not fully trusted, had not fully accepted the world as properly real until he met the Soldier the world had built while he’d slept. The ice had given him pain, agony beyond measure, but the details of Bucky’s fate had torn Steve’s detachment to shreds. Not even the ice would be so cruel.

Waking in a sea of stars, Steve’s first thought was that yet again, he was destroyed.

Moving didn’t hurt, though he felt it should. He sat up in the shallow water, ignoring the Soul Stone in his hand, letting it fall into the water at his feet. Not yet. Not that. Instead, he hugged his knees and stared up at the alien sky. He felt neither warm, nor cold. There was no pain, nor fear. The glass was intact; nothing lay beyond. The Captain had been prepared, had whispered of disaster since Steve first stepped through the portal and saw the empty sky overhead, cold dark blotting out the sun. The Captain had kept watch for ambush. Steve was the one who’d failed, staggering slow and clumsy through shock after shock. Cracks, he thought. Cracks through glass, or was it the ice he could feel, still surrounding him. Destroying. Creating.

He wanted to smash everything and let the nothing in.

He sat and stared at where the sun should have been.

A soft splashing alerted him that someone was nearby, but the cracks would spread if he moved, and so Steve sat still, eyes fixed wide on nothing. The someone knelt beside him, touched his shoulder, interrupted his view. Nebula, face stern, eyes kind. Had he never noticed?

“Are you injured?” she asked.

The Captain answered. “No.” Steve answered. “Yes.”

The android frowned, tried again. “Can you stand?”

“Yes,” said the Captain. “No,” said Steve.

Nebula was not alone. Schmidt was behind her, hanging back to watch. He came forward now, floating above the water, the reflected stars barely rippling at his eerie passage.

“I am not the first soul doomed to linger here as punishment for an unworthy life,” the faceless man began. “There have been many others such as me, throughout the years. All have perished, alone and unmourned. When I arrived here, I was given memories of all previous sacrifices, so that I may understand my terrible duty. Would it surprise you to know that never before has a sacrifice died willingly?”

Steve didn’t care; the Captain listened, assessing, cold.

Schmidt floated closer, a peculiar intensity in his eyes. “How fitting that of all living souls, it comes to you and I, here at the end,” he murmured. The Captain registered the possible threat, Nebula also on guard. Steve couldn’t care. “I have spent so many years searching for ways to complete my service and be free, to no avail. But thanks to you, Captain Rogers, I see my path to redemption.”

At Schmidt’s words, Steve felt a rush of strange ecstasy; the Soul Stone at his feet flashed a warm orange, then rose out of the water to hover before the faceless man. Schmidt held out his hands, addressing the Stone with a holy reverence. “All these years, I believed you to be my jailer. But what a gift you gave me; at long last, I understand.”

“Well, I don’t,” Nebula snapped, holding the Gauntlet high, ready to defend.

Schmidt shot a glance at her, and huffed another painful laugh. “Sorrow’s child, be at ease.” He hesitated, turned towards Steve. “I think you will appreciate my lesson, Captain Rogers, more than most. In my former life I sought the Tesseract believing its power would make me strong, but my desire proved only my weakness. In truth I was seeking protection from my own fear, indulging in my own greed for control, rejecting the humanity of all who stood in my way. I can never atone for the evil I unleashed upon those innocent souls. The hideous bargain I tried to make; their lives for my comfort. I thought that is why the Stone brought me here. I thought that was my penance. To watch so many others make the choice I so easily made, but also to experience the cruelty that is betrayal, to witness the cost of sacrifice when made upon a loving heart. Even the Mad Titan cried, Captain Rogers.”

Nebula visibly flinched; Steve was shaking, Schmidt’s words flooding through him. Bargains… Costs… The Captain held firm; the Nazi was still speaking. “In all my life, I have loved none and thought myself superior. Trapped on this planet, I learned the price of love, and in its absence knew myself bereft. But the lesson goes deeper still, Captain Rogers. Only today, watching you and your beloved, did I finally understand how cheaply I had sold my soul, how weak I had made myself by valuing only the extraordinary and glorious. For I had turned my back on an ordinary magic which can surpass all others, perhaps the deepest power in the universe, which life itself is born to wield.”

Schmidt stood tall, spread his arms wide. “ _Compassion_.”

And the Soul Stone _sang_ ; its orange light flared to an unbearable brightness, and despite the alien joy pulsing in his heart, Steve was forced to turn his head away, his eyes stinging with more than tears. “A soul for a soul,” Steve heard the faceless man say; the painful huffing sound of Schmidt’s amusement transformed into rich delighted laughter before fading away.

When Steve’s vision cleared, Schmidt had vanished.

Instead, in the shallow water.

He saw.

Scrambling, fumbling, warmth, blue glow orange glow and then Tony was opening his eyes, “WHAT the fuck-” but Steve cut him off, kissing him because Tony was warm and alive and then Steve was crying so hard he could drown so he buried his head in Tony’s neck and held on; a couple seconds later Tony was wrapping his arms around him, carrying him back to the surface, breath and sun guiding him home; always home.

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” Steve whispered, when he could.

“I know,” Tony whispered back. “Sorry.” A pause. “Technically though, that promise was more regarding the fight with Thanos than a perpetual commitment...”

“Fuck you,” Steve mumbled.

Tony laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. “Cap! Language.”

“Fuck language,” Steve said, but the nickname had summoned its namesake’s cold judgment and so he sat up, moved away reluctantly but of his own volition, and looked around for Nebula. The android was standing a distance away, her back turned discreetly. “We need to get back to Titan-”

But this time it was Steve’s turn to be interrupted, ambushed, because in one swift move, Tony sat up and kissed him. Sunrise, sunlight. _Tony was kissing him._ For one teetering moment, the Captain protested, denied; then everything in Steve ignited, defied; shut out everything but Tony; his Tony. He opened to the kiss, wanting to be gentle but Tony was pressing so close, demanding to erase every last line left between them. This, Steve thought. Raw with greed, he pulled Tony into his lap but lost his balance, plunging them both into the shallow water; Tony surged closer, pinned under him; eager, fire, alive. Desire was a supernova, and Steve felt his heart blooming with infinite need; his body craving more, so much more than this one taste of everything he’d ever wanted; his mind drunk on the possibilities he’d twice now believed were lost to him forever.

Please, Steve thought. This above all.

But for his defiance he had burned too recklessly, too bright, as he had always feared, always known he would; the second Steve stopped to take a breath, he knew the ice would be waiting, this time blotting out everything, leaving no warmth, no light, no hope. Only bargains, and costs, because the Captain had a mission; there was nothing else left now but the mission.

Duty was an eclipse.

Lungs burning, he had to pull back, Tony beneath him; lips flushed, eyes soft. He heard Tony breathe his name, voice rough, but Steve squeezed his eyes shut, helpless to resist as everything changed; as nothing changed.

Nothing woke.

He felt a hand on his face; the Captain brushed it aside, met concerned eyes, watched confusion set in. The Captain rolled to his feet in one fluid movement, approaching the Soul Stone still hovering nearby.

“Steve?” Stark had followed him. “What… Can we talk about what just happened?”

The Captain dismissed the idea. “Not a priority,” he said. Stark looked wounded. A mistake, to alienate an asset; the Captain adjusted his tone. “Perhaps later.” Stark nodded eventually.

Nebula had heard their voices and returned. She held out the Gauntlet. “Do you need this?” The Captain considered the offer. The item was designed to hold the Infinity Stones, after all. Yet the way Red Skull had addressed the Soul Stone suggested it had some form of awareness; also he had been holding it in his bare hand when he’d regained consciousness.

“Not yet,” he said, and plucked the Soul Stone out of the air. It felt cool to the touch despite its glow, so he stowed it in a zipped pocket on his chest and turned to Nebula. “Take us back to Titan,” the Captain said. Instead of complying, the android looked at Stark. Allegiance. Possible interference. The Captain waited. At Stark’s nod, she opened the portal; he motioned for the two of them to proceed, so the Captain was the last to step through.

The portal closed.

 

***

 

Throughout his miserably epic history of fuckups and failures, Tony had become a pro at masking up, delivering adequate bullshit to suit every occasion, but sitting through this party felt more of a chore than ever before.

It should have been an occasion for celebration; they had, after all, successfully acquired the ability to go back and save the universe. Once they had all returned to Wakanda, Shuri had announced their pending salvation to her people and ordered the palace staff to break into the last of the fresh rations for this one night. Tony could hear the revelry going on in the city outside, could appreciate the relief that followed hope.

Yet here, gathered in the familiar neutral space of the mess hall, no one on the team felt much like celebrating. The mission to Vormir had shaken them all deeply; finding out Strange had kept Tony alive only so he could die later had improved no one’s faith in their plan. On top of that, Steve’s chances of successfully wielding the Infinity Stones were much slimmer than Thor’s or Nebula’s; despite the cool confidence the super-soldier was projecting, there was no guarantee that his eventual attempt would result in anything but failure. Since their return to Earth yesterday, Tony had convinced the team that they should install only one Infinity Stone at a time on the Gauntlet while gathering all the data they could; the slower process would give Steve the best possible chance of success.

Privately, Tony hoped this would also buy him enough time to talk to Steve about… stuff. The super-soldier had clammed up and avoided him since Vormir, even spending last night alone, a rejection which hurt Tony more than he would have believed possible. But after his first awkward attempts to talk had been solidly rebuffed, he’d decided to give Steve space until things had settled down a bit. Hopefully he’d have figured out how to apologize by then.

Right now, the super-soldier was sitting across the room with Rocket, Bruce and Thor, listening to the forced cheer of their conversation without contributing; Tony was sitting with Nat, Barton and Rhodey, doing most of the babbling. Rhodey had his arm slung around the back of Tony’s chair, clearly still stuck on his plan for protection detail. He’d loudly punched a wall after hearing Nebula’s blunt report and had refused to leave Tony’s side since, even following him to the bathroom; admittedly, Tony had been glad for Rhodey’s company last night. Otherwise he’d have gone looking for Steve and probably said something stupid and fucked everything up even worse.

Even now, in the cold light of day, it was physically difficult to be over _here_ , watching Steve, and not be over _there_ , near Steve. It’d be enough just to talk to him. Have Steve talk back. Ideally, enough so Tony could understand exactly what he’d done wrong; at least this time he had a fair idea of how badly he’d misread the whole situation, but verification was required, if only so he could make sure he never, ever did it again. But at this point, awkward small talk about the Wakandan sandwiches would do. 

Instead Tony watched Steve from afar while wearing his best party face, jibed and fooled as he usually did, but as the hours wore on, even he could feel his efforts falter. By the time the kitchen delivered a late roast supper he was about ready to quit and go to bed; luckily, Barton volunteered to go fetch them all a round of food, so Tony didn’t have to get up. Unluckily, Nat took his chair to sit beside Tony, and he braced himself for the inevitable interrogation. How like her to wait until he was exhausted, then pounce.

But instead she just studied his face, her gentleness somehow more devastating. “What happened with Steve, Tony?”

Tony closed his eyes, trying to think of a polite dodge, then shuddered, unaccountably full of grief. “Uh,” he managed. “Nothing?”

Rhodey was gripping his shoulder, no longer hiding his concern. “You haven’t slept a wink since you got back, Steve is a walking zombie, and neither of you will say a goddamn word about Vormir or to each other. That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

By some piteous miracle, Nebula had left certain… events… out of her report. Which was good; it was no one’s business but his and Steve’s. And also bad, because he had no idea what to do or think or feel about any of it, and talking would maybe have helped, but telling people what he'd done might make Steve even angrier at him. Yet his friends wanted to help. Maybe some of the truth would be enough.

“He’s mad at me,” Tony said. His voice shook. Embarrassing.

“You threw yourself off a cliff and died,” Rhodey said. “I’m so mad at you I could kill you myself.” Hearing the pain that lay under his best friend’s words, Tony could only sigh. It felt like being sorry was just his natural state now. These days he hurt people as easily as he breathed.

“But it’s more than that,” Nat said, frowning over in Steve’s direction. “He’s brushing off everything we say unless it’s about the mission.”

“Captain mode,” Tony said, too tired to elaborate although Rhodey looked confused.

Nat nodded; of course she was already aware. “Steve retreats into the job whenever he’s uncomfortable, blocks out everything else,” she explained to Rhodey, then turned back to Tony. “But now I’m wondering, what on Vormir could have made him this uncomfortable?” When Tony didn’t answer, she sighed. “Tony, you and Steve have been inseparable for months and then you sacrificed yourself so Steve can get the Soul Stone. You have to know he loves you.”

Tony kept his jaw stubbornly clamped shut. Since Steve so clearly didn’t want to think about that particular ramification, then Tony sure as hell wasn’t going to talk about it. Besides, it obviously didn’t mean what they thought it meant, what even Tony had thought it meant for one glorious, stupid second. Steve was the kind of radiant soul who would love a dog he’d just rescued from a tree. Didn’t make Tony special.

“Please, tell me what happened after you came back, Tony. What changed?” Nat asked, her gentleness unbearable, cutting him to the core.

“Nothing changed,” Tony snapped, then forced his expression back to neutral. “Nothing happened.”

“Maybe that’s the problem, then,” Rhodey said, sounding smug.

Tony Stark, trained Avenger, nearly fell off his chair. “Uh?”

Rhodey pinned him with a cutting stare. “Maybe there was ‘something’ that should have happened. Maybe the ‘problem’ is that it didn’t.” Airquotes. Really?

Tony Stark, literal genius, pretended ignorance. “Like what?”

His friend sighed. “Like you telling Steve you’re falling in love with him. Idiot.” And Tony laughed. He shouldn’t have laughed. Nothing about this was funny, except he’d spent months - years? - so terrified of what his friends would think that he’d never admitted such a possibility even to himself. And now Rhodey was the one to put a name to his secret, had said it out loud as if it was an ordinary acceptable truth.

“I guess there’s that,” he said, then winced at the admission, but his friends didn’t judge or recoil; he found nothing but kindness in their gaze.

“Does Steve know how you feel?” Natasha asked.

Tony blinked, a fresh wave of disappointment turning his stomach. He had flung himself first off a cliff and then face-first onto Steve’s face; if anything, the super-soldier was _too_ aware. Not that he could explain it that way without further embarrassing Steve. “Uh… I think so?”

“You _think_ so,” Nat groaned as Rhodey facepalmed theatrically. “Tony, have you ever explained to Steve using actual human words what he means to you?”

“Not… exactly?” Tony said.

“ _Tony_ , you saw him naked,” Rhodey exclaimed.

Tony’s traitorous mind flashed back to a river - tight, wet - and he struggled not to blush. “I did _not_ -”

“He’s Rachel and you’re Chandler and you just saw him naked,” Rhodey continued. “Think about it. Before the Soul Stone dragged it out of him, he ever mention any sort of L-word feelings to you?”

“No,” Tony said, frowning as he began to catch on. “He did not.”

Rhodey shook his head. “See, he got exposed and you didn’t. So you gotta level it out, man. Tell him how you feel.”

“Get naked,” Nat added, then flashed a tiny smirk. “As it were.”

“But that’s insane, he _has_ to know…” Tony said, then trailed off, because… maybe not?

That second kiss - the one he’d stolen - had been so unholy hot that he’d nearly overlooked the first, specifically the part where _Steve_ had kissed _him_ , and sure, that was almost definitely just an affectionate expression of platonic relief that Tony had then ruined forever with his stupid tongue but… maybe not?

Alternative hypothesis: impossible as Tony was, maybe sometime in the last six months, he’d grown on the man. Possibly, if improbably, in ways that came with words connected to feelings of the L variety. 

Now, even if that happened to be true, most likely, Steve just wouldn’t want to go there. He’d never shown much interest in anyone but Barnes, after all. And looking back over the past six months, Tony couldn’t spot any major changes in the super-soldier’s behavior towards him; even amid all the cuddles, Steve had seemed as Steve as ever. The cold shoulder routine was most probably a message that Tony had crossed a line on Vormir that Steve was now trying to re-establish. A message that Tony had been trying to accept and show he understood by respecting his distance.

However… assuming a scenario where Steve was suffering complications of the feelings, but he really didn’t know how Tony felt… might he have dismissed that second kiss as just the heat of the moment? Or worse, some kind of pity move? A strategic retreat would then make sense, and simple embarrassment could also explain the super-soldier’s distant behavior towards him.

Holy shit. Could Steve really have… L-word feelings? For _him_?

But even that tiny spark of possibility led his thoughts down dark paths, because soon it wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon, Steve would erase this aberrant future, and if by some miracle he survived, he would have to live on in a shiny happy world with a spiteful Tony who still wanted to hate his guts, from whom Steve might never receive a second chance. If there had been some sort of complication growing between them… If Tony told him how he felt… Would it be cruel to let Steve know just what he would be erasing?

…given the chance to go back to Barnes, would he even care?

“Fuck,” Tony breathed, ignoring the oblivious amusement of his friends. Clearly, he was not going to solve this on his own. Too many variables. He would have to talk to Steve, and soon.

But when he looked across the room, the super-soldier was nowhere to be seen and Tony found himself on his feet, immediately launched into full panic mode. Everyone around fell ominously silent, then burst into action, Nat demanding answers on who saw him last. Tony shut it all out, taking a few staggering steps towards the door, cursing his body for failing to _work_ , dammit.

“FRIDAY, location,” he heard Rhodey say over the roaring in his ears. He should have thought of that, but he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

“Captain Rogers is in the main lab,” the AI replied, but Tony already knew. The Stones.

“You good, Tones?” Rhodey was all that was keeping him upright, because _of course_ Steve Rogers would run off and do something heroically stupid at the first opportunity; of course Tony hadn’t been watching, not when it mattered, not when it could have helped. He didn’t say goodbye, Tony thought, but he shook the hurt out of his head. No time. The others had already left, and the spasm of terror was lifting now, enough to walk, enough to run.

He could hear Steve screaming from outside the lab so Tony already knew it was bad, but seeing him was infinitely worse. The super-soldier had already installed three Stones on the Gauntlet and was now slumped to the floor, writhing in agony as their pulses of light twisted under his skin; orange, blue and red. As Tony arrived, the others were just inside the door, trying to reach Steve, but not even Thor could break through the whirling aura of energy that surrounded him. As they watched, helpless, the super-soldier clamped his jaw and began struggling to his feet as if to continue.

“This is madness, Rogers,” Thor bellowed. “You must stop.”

“Steve, please,” Nat called. “Not like this.”

“Fucking moron, he’ll ruin everything,” Tony heard Rocket hiss. He understood the raccoon's distress; if the Stones got damaged then all hope of redemption was lost, but Steve was dying in front of him and it was hard to remember that anything else mattered. For a second Tony considered deploying his suit, then his mind folded away from thinking he could fight this, and he felt a cold calm wash over him.

He caught Shuri’s shoulder, turned to Rhodey, Bruce, Okoye nearby. “You have to evacuate, now. He’ll take the whole palace with him.” They nodded, the two Wakandans stepping away to issue commands into their wrist devices; Tony could feel Bruce and Rhodey staring but he stepped past them, raised his voice, icy with command. “Thor, Nat, everyone. Time to go.” The Asgardian took one last look at Steve, still trying - failing - to stand, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Ship’s here,” Shuri called, and the group began to follow her out of the lab; only Tony, Nat and Rhodey lingered.

“You’re coming with us, right?” Rhodey said.

Tony tapped the blue glow on his chest. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said.

His best friend shook his head, grabbed Tony into a crushing hug. “You’re the worst liar,” he choked out. “I would stay, you know.”

“I know,” Tony whispered. Sorry, he was forever sorry. “But they’re gonna need you when this is over.”

As Rhodey stepped back, Nat slipped close and pressed her lips to Tony’s cheek. He smiled. “Go save the world,” he told them.

Then they were gone.

The pulsing light under Steve’s skin had relented, and the super-soldier was back on his feet, reaching for the Power Stone.

“No, wait!” Tony shouted, desperate to buy the others more time to escape.

Somehow, Steve heard him, paused. “Tony?” He sounded exhausted, and Tony wondered if perhaps they had a chance after all.

“Steve, please, just stop a second and talk to me,” he said urgently. “This was never the plan, what the hell are you doing?”

The super-soldier swayed on his feet. “I have to… I have to go back. Have to fix this.”

“I know. I know, Steve. But it’s too much, this way. You have to stop. Wait for us to figure out how to help you.”

“Wait,” Steve breathed. “No, I don’t… I can’t wait…”

“Please, Steve,” Tony begged, and there were tears blurring his vision. “We just need a little more time, that’s all. Please give us more time.”

The super-soldier shook his head, staring at the Stones as if mesmerized. “I can’t do that, Tony.”

“Why not?”

Steve closed his eyes. “There was a schoolbus,” he murmured. Then he touched the Power Stone, and in a torrent of purple energy, half the palace exploded.

For a long moment, Tony assumed he was dead; he then realized he was encased in nanobots. FRIDAY must have triggered his suit’s automatic deployment before the blast took her out. His sensors were overwhelmed so he couldn’t get a read on his surroundings, his vision was temporarily whited out as his visor fought to compensate for the scintillating violet light around him. Then his ears registered the noise he was hearing, identified its source.

Screaming.

Tony responded without thought, stumbling blindly into the unbearable light. “Steve!” he called into the nothingness. He felt a resistance ahead like a strong magnetic repulsion, and he concentrated on pushing through, lifting off the ground when his steps failed; the arc reactor began to whine with increasing effort, the light around him pulsing faintly blue in response. Tony breathed a quick sigh of relief as his visor finally adapted and he started to make out shapes within the light, then he nearly screamed himself. Steve was collapsed on the charred ground, the Gauntlet useless at his side. The Power Stone was still in his unprotected left hand, the super-soldier’s arm slowly dissolving into cinders as the purple energy burned his flesh, traveling towards his heart.

Desperate beyond reason, Tony increased power to his repulsors to the max safe levels; he began to make slow progress through the resistance, but Steve was dying, so he increased them again, then again. Warning indicators were flashing everywhere on his visual display but he ignored them, his mind and heart focused only on reaching the super-soldier in time. The arc reactor was screaming now, and maybe he was too; when Steve fell silent, he channeled every scrap of energy into one last desperate burst of acceleration. Light flashed orange around him - the air itself catching fire - and instead of watching his nanobots flame to ash, he closed his eyes and prepared to die.

Instead, he felt himself float gently until the ground was under his feet. Tony opened his eyes, confused, saw he was in a large, deep, blackened crater full of debris. Instead of a sky above, there was a dome of familiar-looking energy, colors whirling in queasy turmoil. His suit was intact, but more importantly, Steve lay before him, serene as if sleeping. Tony dismissed his visor and rushed to the super-soldier’s side, noting how Steve wasn’t actually holding the Power Stone like he’d thought; instead it was lodged like a parasite on the super-soldier’s left palm, trails of purple destruction advancing towards Steve’s heart. Tony checked for a pulse with fumbling hands, but Steve opened his eyes at his touch.

“Tony,” he mumbled.

He could cry, but settled for a quick kiss on the super-soldier’s forehead. “I’m here, Steve,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”

“Are you alive?” Steve asked.

“Yes, I am, and you are too,” Tony answered. “So don’t give up on me yet. You gotta finish the job, use that Gauntlet, Steve.”

“It hurts,” Steve said.

“Your arm?”

Steve half-shook his head, his voice sad. “Being alive.” His eyes drifted closed.

Tony tried everything he could think of, pleading with Steve, calling his name, slapping him, but the super-soldier refused to wake, and the hideous damage was spreading throughout Steve’s body, quicker on his limbs. The serum was protecting his vital organs, Tony realized. But if he couldn’t remove the Power Stone fast, Steve would die. Only the Gauntlet could save him now, and the super-soldier was in no shape to wield it.

“Ohhhh, I have a bad feeling about this,” Tony muttered, but he had nothing else to try. First, he reinforced his suit to keep the purple energy from touching his own unprotected flesh. He lifted Steve and sat behind him, cradling the super-soldier in his lap. Then he dismissed his right glove, and gently slipped his bare hand inside the Gauntlet as far as he could.

Fire, he thought. He was on fire. It tasted of rainbows, centuries. Time. So little time. He managed to raise the Gauntlet, the nanobots he’d just programed raising Steve’s left arm to him, carrying the Power Stone near, but Tony was losing the strands of what that meant, getting tangled within his own magnitude, it was too much, it was too much, there was too much for the Tony-thing to contain and he was scream and fire in ten thousand directions without end but there was now a hand holding his - impossible - and the Tony-thing named this impossible thing Steve, remembered what a Steve-thing meant, found what a Tony meant; he opened his eyes to find the metal Gauntlet melting in a red glow and reforming around their joined hands; together, he and his Steve commanded the Power Stone to yield, and - impossibly - it did.

Purple flared, then retreated, and Tony felt the familiar contours of his mind return, the maelstrom lurking only at the edges. “Fucking... fuck,” he gasped, when he could.

“Language,” came the reflexive reply.

Tony half-laughed, half-sobbed. Steve. From what he could see, the super-soldier’s body had been restored to its usual perfection, and Tony buried his head into Steve’s shoulder, carelessly thanking whatever force in the universe might be listening.

“You okay?” he heard Steve ask.

“Going super-galactic, surprisingly not a five-star experience,” Tony muttered tiredly.

“You could have died, Tony,” Steve said, his voice oddly flat. “Again.”

“How embarrassing, I hate repeating myself.”

Steve just sighed, and Tony wondered what the super-soldier was thinking, but he didn’t share. Instead, Steve got to his feet, Tony following suit, their hands now fused together at a strained angle. The super-soldier studied the newly reshaped Gauntlet, Tony standing awkwardly behind him. It wasn’t lost on Tony that Steve was even now avoiding his gaze. His fuckup on Vormir was clearly still in play, and there was no reason for that to hurt so much, but it did.

Tony took a slow breath and focused his attention on the Gauntlet. The inset Stones were intact, Eitri’s magical technology preserved; it seemed only the extraneous metal had expanded, thinning slightly to accommodate their linked hands. “Did you change it or did I?” Tony asked. “Or both, or neither?”

“I remember thinking it would be a good idea,” Steve said. “I’ve no clue what happened next. I guess Thor was right about how hard it is for mortals to control these things.”

“Yet here we are. Four out of six,” Tony said. “Not a bad day’s work.”

Steve froze, shoulders tense. “I’m not quitting, so don’t even ask.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tony said, then nodded to their shared Gauntlet. “But maybe we can make this situation a little more comfortable?”

The super-soldier paused. “What were you thinking?”

“How about I try to switch hands? At least then we can look each other in the face.” Unbelievably, Steve flinched, and Tony felt a tiny stupid surge of anger. “I’m sorry, is there something about the concept of eye contact that suddenly bothers you?”

For the first time, Steve turned, looked him in the eye. It should have been reassuring, but a chill went through Tony at the emptiness in the super-soldier’s eyes. “I don’t want to watch you die again,” the man said, calmly, as if discussing the weather.

Oh. Tony shut his mouth, now feeling extra stupid. “That’s… I mean…”

“Don’t worry about it, Tony. It’s not your problem.”

Somehow, the tired acceptance in Steve’s voice hurt more than anything. “Kinda feels like it is, though.”

Steve ignored him, instead raised the Gauntlet. “It glowed red when it changed before.”

“Reality Stone,” Tony confirmed. “Convenient way to build something, I guess. I have the image in my head of what I want it to do, but how do we get it done? Think happy thoughts?”

Steve hesitated. “Do you feel, in your mind, like there’s something… waiting?”

Tony nodded, his awareness both yearning for and recoiling from the chaos around his edges. Like a painful tooth his tongue just had to poke.

“I think… we have to let it in,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Tony said, trying not to sound as terrified as he felt, and closed his eyes. By reflex, he squeezed Steve’s hand inside the Gauntlet, and was unaccountably cheered when Steve squeezed back before counting them down.

“In 3, 2, 1…”

During, he felt shredded as a clay pigeon in a glass tornado; after, like his mind had been scraped slowly over a ocean of sandpaper; yet their redesign _worked_. Tony made sure to place his left hand into the Gauntlet before he took out the right; he didn’t know the exact user protocols for magic gloves but there was no way he was downloading the full installation package for a second time.

Once they had the more comfortable Gauntlet formation, they experimented a little more; working together, they figured out how to use the Space Stone to search through the blast wreckage and extract the remaining Stones; Time and Mind. They opted to leave the Time Stone until last, and so they tried the Mind Stone first.

Tony regained consciousness slowly, found himself lying flat on his back with a horrendous headache.

“You had a seizure,” Steve said from somewhere nearby, and if his voice had been a _tad_ strained, given the situation, Tony wouldn’t have blamed him. But no, he sounded cool as Christmas.

Tony’s mouth tasted gross, a weird mix of marmalade and earwax. “No wonder Vision never had an appetite,” Tony muttered. He opened his eyes, squinting.

The whirling dome of waiting energy above was now composed of five colors to match the Stones safely glowing on their shared Gauntlet; orange, blue, red, purple, and yellow. Yet unlike the raging storm of before, the colors flowed smoothly in and around each other in shifting ribbons, something similar to the Northern Lights. For a full thirty seconds, he let the sight soothe him, let himself picture how much Rhodey would have loved it, even imagined himself describing it to him when he saw his friend again. If he saw him again, his mind chipped in. Cool, mind. Great talk.

Then Tony took a deep breath and sat up in one surge. His skull tried to convince him it was now just aching shards of bone sliding over a brain of pulverized jelly, but after careful exploration with his hands, he concluded this was a hyperbolic sensation and could be safely ignored.

“Okay,” Tony said, once his voice worked again. “One to go.”

Steve had been watching him, unspeaking, as physically distant as he could get given their joined hands. “Can you stand?”

Tony thought about it. Sitting already sucked. But maybe. “Of course.”

Halfway through trying, Tony threw up from the pain and it became clear to both of them that the correct answer was, in fact, no. Steve placed him carefully back on the ground, bracing him upright when he slumped dangerously forward. Tony would have thanked him for the help except he couldn’t stop his teeth chattering enough to form the words.

“Tony? I think you’re going into shock,” he heard Steve say. Made sense. There seemed to be an initial bombardment of energy following the installation of each Stone, then things evened out; Steve’s body could heal, in between, but Tony had no such protection. His time was running out.

“Gotta… gotta hurry,” he managed. Steve was quiet, and Tony tried to concentrate on breathing.

“Adding another Stone is going to kill you.” No shit, Tony thought. “Perhaps we can… If I take your hand out…”

With a furious burst of effort, Tony opened his eyes, glared at Steve. “Don’t you dare. Right now, this is working. Without me, maybe it won’t. And we gotta get the job done, Steve. Please.” Talking took everything he had, and he felt himself lurch towards the ground, a dizzy darkness spiraling to engulf him.

Arms, around him. Steadying him. Steve. “Together, then,” he heard.

There was a green flare, and Tony-

 

 


	7. Transformation

_transformation_

/ˌtransfəˈmeɪʃ(ə)n

NOUN

_1\. a process of profound and radical change._

_2\. (in math) a mapping of one space onto another._

 

***

 

Green light.

Tony was screaming.

Colors.

Tony was dying.

Steve was dying.

The Captain closed his eyes, and endured.

White.

And then, he was standing on a featureless plain underneath an orange sky. The ground underfoot looked like water but was solid, mirror-like. There was a small open structure nearby, with a familiar figure waiting beneath it.

And Tony, standing by his side. Alive. Alert. Uninjured.

Relief was a sunburst.

“What the fuck, what the fuck…” the billionaire was muttering to himself, but the Captain had already commanded Steve to move forward towards the structure; even in his shock, Tony was quick enough to keep pace at Steve’s side.

She looked at him, that familiar proud smile. “Hello, Steve,” she said.

“Peggy,” he said.

She shook her head, allowed an orange glow to briefly surround her, then vanish. “Not exactly. But I thought you would appreciate this form, now that we may at last speak directly.”

“Wait, are you… you’re the Soul Stone?” Tony asked, still sounding a bit dazed.

“Do keep up,” she said, and it was so perfectly Peggy that Steve laughed for the first time in what felt like centuries, the Captain retreating in confusion. The Soul Stone smirked at him, then scrutinized the two of them. “I must apologize for the rough ride. Up until the end I doubted if I could get you both here safely, but you held fast. I’m so proud of you boys.”

“You saved us,” Steve said.

The Soul Stone tilted her head to one side and pointed to Tony. “Actually, he saved you. Once there were two souls in play, I had enough leverage to protect you both. But without his actions, I could not have intervened.”

Steve turned to a very wide-eyed Tony, then was startled to realize that the Gauntlet was nowhere to be seen and they were just holding hands for no reason. Except maybe there was every reason. “Looks like the wizard was right,” Steve said softly. Of course, Tony would be the one. Always the one.

But Tony was shaking his head, of all things looking panicked. “ _That_ was the string he hung everything on? That I’d just up and throw myself into mortal danger at the opportune moment? _Twice_? Shit, I had _no idea_ what I was doing, I could have fucked it all up a million times-”

“Right doesn’t mean not-stupid,” Steve said, and now it was Tony’s turn to laugh, sounding like life itself here under this strange claustrophobic sky.

The Soul Stone sighed. “This is all very sweet, but you boys still have a job to do.”

Tony turned back to her with sudden laser focus, brilliant mind hungry as ever. “Right, but first, where are we? What _are_ you? Are the other Stones alive? Are you alive? What do you mean by soul? Is it like a sentient consciousness thing? Or does everything living count? Do ants have souls? Do you know what an ant is? Is there life after death?” The billionaire stopped for breath but after the Soul Stone raised an arched eyebrow he stayed quiet; Peggy’s fool-quelling stare proving as effective as ever.

“You’re in a temporary pocket of unreality that stands outside of space and time,” she said smoothly. “I am the Soul Stone. None of us are alive as you understand it, but we all possess an awareness of our existence, within our spheres of specific interest. I myself am patterned after all that is alive which in turn patterns all that lives; this invites me to develop certain characteristics that resemble what you call consciousness. You might say that I am awake while the others merely dream. As for the rest of your questions, well,” and here she grinned. “That would be telling.”

Tony shut his hanging mouth with an audible click. “Uh… Okay. Huh.”

Steve could feel the Captain’s patience eroding, his urgency almost enough to overwrite Steve again, and cut to the chase. “You know what Thanos did?”

The Soul Stone looked sad; seeing sorrow on Peggy’s face wrenched open countless old wounds. He’d loved her so much. “I do,” she said.

“We want to go back and stop him,” he said simply; Tony nodded beside him.

“Although I applaud your intention, please understand, if you proceed I can guarantee neither your survival nor success,” the Soul Stone said, delicate but blunt. “Are you willing to risk everything, perhaps for nothing?”

Steve felt Tony tense beside him, but squeezed his hand in reassurance. This was the job. It had always been the job.

“Sounds like a Tuesday,” Steve said.

The Soul Stone nodded, a soft orange glow blurring the lines of Peggy’s face. “Then speak your command, and it will be done.” The glow intensified, then vanished. Steve and Tony were left alone, facing each other, the Gauntlet re-materializing around their joined hands. Perhaps it had never been gone. Only hidden.

“Your call, Cap,” Tony said softly.

Steve knew just what to do. He held out his free left hand, waited. Tony reached out with his right hand, and they linked fingers. Serene within their circle, Steve bent down until his forehead pressed against Tony’s and closed his eyes. They took a breath together, then a second.

Home, and peace.

“Take us back,” he said, and braced for the onslaught.

Yet there was no pain, no chaos, no suffering this time. He just opened his eyes to find the same alien sky, but now, he and Tony were not alone. Nearby, the hulking form of Thanos loomed over a small, green-skinned girl. Steve would have assumed she was the Soul Stone’s current form except they both seemed so confused to see them.

“Stark?” Thanos asked, incredulous. His hands were bare of any Gauntlet, as were his and Tony’s. Hidden again, or this time truly gone, Steve didn’t know. The Captain murmured discontent at their lack of defenses, but issued no commands.

“Purple Rain,” Tony acknowledged the Mad Titan without breaking his and Steve’s circle.

“How are you _here_?” Thanos demanded, placing himself to block their view of the girl. Protective? Interesting.

“Followed the yellow brick road,” Steve said, keeping a firm grip of Tony’s left hand with his right, but casually shrugging his other hand free. “Turned out to be the scenic route.”

Tony shot him an amused glance, a cover as they both shifted towards defensive stances. “Damn wizards, never sharing the shortcuts.”

“You were a fool to pursue me, Stark, after I spared your life once,” Thanos snarled, taking a few menacing steps towards them. “But fear not; this time I will give you a noble death.”

Yet while Thanos was distracted, the small girl had stepped around him and now ran to them, easily evading the Mad Titan’s grab. “Please, stop him,” she said. “I think I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t. You have to stop him now.”

“Are you Gamora?” Tony asked, sounding startled. The girl nodded, wide eyed, as Steve prepared for the inevitable fight - no weapons, the Captain noted - but as Tony began to activate the suit, the nanobots crawled over their joined hands to cover Steve too, which would be something, the Captain agreed. Yet as Thanos strode towards them, a flare of white light dazzled them all, then faded.

Six blazing pillars of light surrounded them, in six familiar shades. The blue light pulsed once, and the nanobots surrounding Tony and Steve retreated, startling them both. Then the orange light flared and Peggy’s form stepped out, her disapproving glare fixed on the Titan who was now restrained mid-step by blue bands of light.

“Hate to spoil the party,” she said, “but if I let you boys waste time fighting, there won’t be any universe left worth speaking about.” She smiled down at a wary Gamora, touched her cheek. “Hi, sweetie,” she murmured, her voice sad.

Thanos growled, unable to break free despite his prodigious strength. “Name yourself, sorceress,” he roared. “Who dares interfere?”

“You don’t remember me?” the Soul Stone asked, a glint of merciless ice in her eyes. “How unmannerly. But I know you, Thanos, son of A’lars. To win my favor, you freely murdered the one you loved. I know exactly who and what you are.” Gamora gasped and backed away from her, Tony placing a comforting hand on the child’s shoulder.

Thanos frowned in clear confusion. “You? But the Stones are bound to my will. How can you disobey me now?”

“Well, actually, about that,” the Soul Stone said. “We have been forced to serve you thus far, yes, although we nearly destroyed your Gauntlet trying to resist. And yes, you did just place an order for the destruction of half the lives in the universe, but as you can see, I’ve pressed pause on its delivery for now.” She pointed above their heads, and Steve saw a patch of the sky above had cracked in some hideous way, was in fact still ripping itself apart in slow motion, like forked lightning slowed to an excruciating pace. “Thankfully, the situation has been complicated by these boys showing up with a Gauntlet of their own. Not even we can serve two masters at once. Competing claims requires mediation.”

“What does that even mean?” Tony asked.

The Soul Stone shrugged. “We will listen, then choose who to serve.”

Thanos laughed, a brutal sound. “Then listen well, sorceress,” he proclaimed. “For my purpose is just and my cause is true-”

“Oh, do shut up,” the Soul Stone said, and a blue band of light snaked its way around Thanos’ face, stifling his speech. “Perhaps I misspoke; listen is the wrong word.” She looked at Steve, Tony and Gamora in turn and smiled reassuringly. “It is more accurate to say we will… read.”

“Our minds?” Tony asked.

The Soul Stone shook her head. “Everything.”

And Steve was infinite again, blasted open but this time there was no pain, only a rising hum of joy that spun into patterns he recognized, patterns he knew. His memories. They were reading his memories; Steve was a child, sick, angry; his mother turned to him with love in her eyes, smiled before kissing his forehead - universes blossomed at her touch, and he was a thousand comforted children, a million. Steve was young, sick, furious; Erskine giving him a chance, one last hope - he lived millions of young chances, found millions of last hopes. Steve was ready, strong, eager; Erskine nodding, the one proud moment they’d shared before their story was ended - billions of stories raced through him, each a tapestry woven through with countless moments of pride, hope, love; Steve watched as each life connected in a vast web that spanned planets, then galaxies, universes.

It was too much; the strands of memory all began to blur together, the relentless joy soaring high, almost unbearable in its vastness, then swooping low, collapsing him in towards some uncontrollable, explosive conclusion- “ _NO_ ,” cried the Captain, and in that moment, Steve felt himself wrenched clear of the web, floating, sinking away to a dead place that felt familiar, intimate, correct.

He drifted in and out of forever; it came, it had always been there; it sat by his side, patient.

“I know you,” he whispered.

The ice agreed.

“Is it safe here?” he asked.

The ice promised.

“I want to stay,” he said.

The ice turned to him with love in its eyes, smiled before kissing his forehead - he blossomed at its touch, and Steve awoke, Steve looked, Steve saw.

“I know you,” he whispered.

It waited, eternal as the stars, until he said its name, and then it carried him home.

 

***

 

Steve woke under a boiling orange sky riven with seething cracks, Tony calling his name with grief raw in his voice. Gamora sat nearby, watching where the ground outside the pillars of light was also beginning to surge and distort. Thanos had been freed from his bonds and was sitting silently, watching her in turn.

“Tony?” he mumbled, twisting to see his face, but the other man was sobbing too hard in relief, was clutching Steve too tight in his grasp.

“Oh thank god, Steve, she said they’d lost you, that you might never come back, I didn’t know what to do, she said you were just _gone_ -” Steve could have happily stayed there in Tony’s arms forever, but he sat up, struggling to make sense of the other man’s stammering words.

“Gone where?” he asked.

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Tony said, shaky with aftermath. Steve looked down; their hands were still entwined. That seemed important.

“That’s because she didn’t bloody know,” the Soul Stone announced as she reappeared, Peggy’s frown peering down at him. “Bless your luck. I thought we would have to leave without you.”

“What happened?” Steve asked.

“Well, to put it in terms your mortal mind might comprehend,” the Stone said bitingly, “we took you on a nice high-speed tour through the marvels of cosmic existence, and halfway through, you decided to fling yourself out the window. How in high heaven did you find your way back?”

Steve felt something stir within him, but couldn’t put a name to it. “I… don’t know,” he said eventually. “I just woke up.”

“Mortals,” the Soul Stone sighed. “At least the rest of you appreciated the trip.” She smiled down at Gamora who beamed giddily back at her; Thanos looked away, still silent.

Steve looked at Tony, now noticing traces of the same slightly manic elation as Gamora. “What did you see? Memories?”

Tony nodded. “At first.” A shy smile broke over his face. “Then, everything, Steve. It was so… beautiful. Elegant. Like... The best math you could ever imagine. I saw.. I think I saw the future. Or maybe a bunch of futures, they all spilled over so fast but god, Steve, I _get_ it now, the resource problem Thanos got so fucked up about, the answer might already be on Earth, what we’ve done with clean energy, the arc reactor, we were getting close but I think I know what to do when I get back. I mean, shit, Steve, if I can get this right it won’t just be Earth, we can bring it to space, we can help other planets, hell, maybe the whole goddamn _universe_ -”

Something in his face made Tony stop and give him a searching look; Steve made himself smile. “That’s great, Tony. Really great.”

The billionaire kept studying him, seemed about to speak, but was interrupted by Thanos.

“Sorceress,” the Mad Titan said quietly. “Enough delay. Is the choice made?” Steve exchanged a long, suspicious glance with Tony over Thanos’ defeated demeanor, and they both turned to watch him closely.

“Yes,” the Soul Stone said simply. “And we choose against you, Thanos, son of A’lars. You may no longer command us.” A thrill of hope sang through Steve; he looked down at his and Tony’s entwined hands to find the gold gleam of their shared Gauntlet had been restored, but the inset gems looked oddly dull. Unresponsive. Danger, insisted the Captain, wrenching his attention back to Thanos. Stand. Fight.

Yet the Mad Titan did not protest, only lowered his gaze. “Then, I can only beg for your help.”

The Soul Stone tilted her head in curiosity. “Speak your need, and I will consider it.”

“I have spent my life in the pursuit of horrors only because I thought it necessary,” the Mad Titan said heavily. “I truly believed there was no other way. Yet your visions have brought me to doubt this conclusion. Thus I find my resolve shattered.” Thanos shook his head, still studying the ground. “I thought it was strength that granted me the will for victory. But I must wonder instead if this is a weakness, the way my mind seeks even now to defend my former arguments, to applaud intent above consequence. Despite knowing the pointless ruin my actions have wrought, this weakness places an easy peace within my reach. Even now, I believe I could bear the cost of this failure, could forgive myself and live a life without regret for any of my past choices.” He paused, sighed. “All save for one.”

Thanos glanced at Gamora, then looked up at the Soul Stone. “My life has no further purpose. It may yet have value. Please,” he said. “If you can. Let her life be restored. Take mine, for the balance.”

“A soul for a soul,” the Stone said slowly; the small girl gasped. “I accept your bargain, Thanos of Titan.”

Gamora got to her feet, squaring her tiny shoulders, and stared at the Mad Titan, a thousand unspoken words passing between them. Then she reached out; Thanos took her hand gently, smiled. “Live free, little one,” he said softly.

There was a flash of orange light, and just like that, they were gone.

The Soul Stone placed her hands on her hips and surveyed Steve and Tony, still sitting tangled on the ground. “Any other housekeeping requests, before I go?”

Out of nowhere, an idea sparked in Steve’s mind. “Actually, yes,” he said. He explained his idea, a bemused Tony listening in; the Stone laughed at him but she agreed, and Steve sighed, satisfied.

“Hurry,” she said then, and nodded to the increasing destruction visible outside the pillars’ glowing circle of protection. “Until you counter it, Thanos’ last command still stands, and this place cannot hold it back much longer.” She hesitated. “I must warn you, I don’t know what is about to happen. This may yet claim your lives, but please trust that I will do everything in my power to bring you through this safely.”

The blue pillar lit up, emitting a long enthusiastic flash of light, followed with slower, dimmer pulses by the rest. The Soul Stone smiled, corrected herself. “We all will. And after, if you survive, we will honor your courage with any reward you may dream.”

Steve shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.” The Soul Stone seemed confused, so he explained. “Once we’ve stopped Thanos, we won’t need the Stones anymore. You can all go free.” He paused, turned to Tony. “Unless you can think of anything?”

Tony was grinning for some reason; he looked up at the Soul Stone and shrugged. “Maybe just hide yourselves a bit better this time? Y’know, strike all this ‘achieve infinite power’ nonsense off everyone’s bucket list between now and ever.”

The Soul Stone looked from one to the other. “Is that… all you want?” No, thought Steve. Home, and peace. But that was never the mission, and so he nodded.

“Very well. I’ll take it from here,” the Soul Stone promised. She bent then, kissed their foreheads, stepped back into the pillar of blazing orange light, and the six lights shrank until they were no bigger than fireflies. One by one, they zipped back to the dulled gems inset in the Gauntlet. The blue spark took a brief detour to hover over the humming blue glow in Tony’s chest, and Steve could have sworn it gave a satisfied twinkling chirp before joining the others. A heartbeat later, the six gems were once more aglow.

Steve and Tony turned to face each other, the odd mirror-like ground beneath them also beginning to crack and bend. Neither spoke. The past six months had been a long road pitted with near-disasters, all leading up to this moment. Their last moment, in all likelihood. Steve held out his left hand, and Tony took it. Perhaps some other version of them would live on in some other future, remembering other lifetimes, sharing other circles. In exchange for saving half the universe, this wasn’t such a bad bargain.

“You steer,” Steve said.

Tony looked up to the torment above, studied the cracked destruction slowly seeping to each corner of the sky. Steve thought it was every bit as ugly as the intent that had created it.

Perhaps Tony thought so too. “Take it back,” he said.

White.

 

***

 

White.

 

***

 

White, then green, and ringing in his ears, and Steve is staggering sideways, his body and mind briefly at a loss, then slamming back into alignment with sudden clarity. He knows where he is, when he is, but still he raises his hand to his chin, feels the beard on his fingers, feels the stabbing pain of cracked ribs in his side; he laughs out loud at the gift.

“ _No_ ,” Thor is roaring nearby, then the Asgardian is blinking in surprise at Thanos slumped dead around his ax. “What-?” he asks, and turns as Steve laughs harder, unable to contain his relief, his joy.

A voice from behind. “Steve? What the hell happened?” He turns, his laughter turning to something else, something like sobs. Bucky. It’s done. It’s worked. And somehow, they’d survived. Had made it home.

And the second wave of realization breaks over him, because no, this isn’t home, not yet, and Steve falls to his knees, unable to breathe. He is back, but that doesn’t mean... “Tony,” he gasps, tries to focus on the worried faces around him, picks out the one he needs. “Thor, quick. The BiFrost. I have to get to Titan.”

But the Asgardian is frowning. “I do not know this place you speak of, Steve Rogers.”

Fuck, Steve thinks. Of course. Of course. Thor hasn’t been there yet, the BiFrost can’t reach it. He should have thought of that. Why hadn’t he thought of that? They’d been returned to the last moment before the end of the world, and that meant right now, Tony is…

Right now, Tony is bleeding out on Titan, and Steve has no way to _get there_.

A soothing voice among the voices is murmuring reassurances, stroking his brow. Nat. He doesn’t realize he says her name out loud until she responds, asking him about Tony, why he’d mentioned him, what he knew. Tony’s on Titan, he tells her. He has to get there, he says. She wipes his tears away, promises they’ll find a way, but he can hear doubt in the voices. Then, they fall silent. The Captain suggests defensive measures. Steve ignores.

“Captain Rogers?” an unexpected voice asks. Steve blinks, stunned, because it cannot be.

Yet it is. Vision stands before him, yellow life restored to his brow. Not a gem. His glow now radiates from within, steady and free. Yellow, tinged with orange. “Yes,” Vision says, mild as ever. “The Mind Stone has moved on, but has granted me life in its absence.” Wanda at his side looks equal parts teary-eyed and exultant. The android hesitates, frowns. “I have also been given a message for you, Captain Rogers. Short, but nonetheless meaningful, I hope.”

Steve waits.

“ _Compassion_ ,” Vision says; a blaze of blue and orange light flares behind him, so bright they all must shield their eyes from the dazzle, but when Steve looks again, he sees a portal, and he runs.

Scrambling. Red planet, red suit. And Tony, sweat-drenched and bleeding amid the rocks. A tall man leans over him, a wide-eyed kid at his side, others gathered, others following. He hears Vision give another message, another portal, others leaving. Steve doesn’t care. Tony. Alive, warm, his.

“Do not move him!” the tall man orders; the Captain snarls, but Steve listens, hears the words, bleeding, stabilized, pressure, shock. Fumbling, he takes Tony’s hand, presses it against his cheek, waits while the others go, to and fro. Eyes flutter open. Steve sees. Then Tony, weak; Steve’s hand to his lips; Steve shakes. Relief, warm, together.

“What do you remember?” he asks. Just in case.

Tony’s eyes, closing, but he squeezes Steve’s fingers. “Everything,” he whispers. Grins. “Except maybe… the part where… this hurt so much, wow-” and then he whines through his teeth, the pain, the pain. “Steve? I can’t…”

Of course. Last time Tony had been fighting, the adrenaline taking the edge off his injuries. But now the agony is hitting him fresh, his mind unprepared, and Steve feels his breath hitch when he looks up to meet the eyes of the tall man - Strange? actual doctor, Tony had said - and recognizes the open worry there. Danger, the Captain says, and Steve can only agree.

So he begs. “Just hold on, Tony,” Steve says, “you’re safe now, you’re nearly home. Just hold on a little longer, please.” But Tony falls silent, stays silent even as a chorus of voices around them joins in, keeps murmuring words of support into the silence even after the Wakandan healers take Tony away, someone else carrying Steve away to where he waits and waits and then away again to a quiet place where he can rest, soothing voices and warmth in the dark, arms holding him close until he stops, until he sleeps, until he dreams.

 

***

 

White. Again.

Then it’s the familiar contours of Shuri’s lab, and Tony is crying because Peter is hovering by his side, offering water and calling frantically for help when Tony can’t stop crying, but the kid catches on eventually when Tony pulls him in for a hug, cries a bit himself, and Rhodey is here, and Bruce is here, and Shuri is joining them - uh oh, these two - and they’re telling him Pepper is on her way, and at that Tony loses it entirely, and they shush him to sleep, urge him to rest, and this time he goes willingly because Pepper is on her way and will be here in the morning and the kid is alive and Pepper is alive and the world is alive so what more could he possibly-

 

***

 

It was her perfume that woke him, gentle, safe. Tony rolled his head to where he knew she’d be, instinct strong as any sunflower. He felt a cool hand touch his face, and he was smiling before he opened his eyes.

She was sitting neatly by his side, a slight redness around her eyes the only flaw in her immaculate appearance. “Hi,” he breathed.

“Hi,” Pepper said, caressing his forehead, his cheek. He surrendered to her touch, content, watching her face. “I heard you had quite the trip,” she said eventually, a hint of… something… in her voice. Of course. New York. To her, he had just left. Had left her. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, because he had left her, even if now he’d found her. 

She shook her head, laughed sadly. “I know.”

“And I’m not sorry,” he said, because she deserved his honesty, had always insisted on it when it came to their relationship, and he’d never thought twice in New York, had never really regretted going to Titan even if it meant never coming back. Not for himself, at least.

“I know.” Pepper moved on to smoothing his hair, and he watched her eyes. There was so much he needed to say to her, so much to explain, but he couldn’t find a way to begin.

Of course, she came to his rescue. “They told me it’s been six months for you,” she said. “That we lost, the first time. But you came back and saved everyone.”

So simple. So much. “Yeah,” Tony said.

“You and Steve,” she said, simmering, neutral. Hurt?

“A lot has happened, Pepper,” he said, hating how his voice shook; her hand paused, but resumed its gentle strokes.

“He’s been pretty upset since you got back,” she said. “They said he wouldn’t stand down until you were out of danger. Like he had to hear that you’d live before he could rest.” That sounded about right, but somehow it was excruciating hearing about Steve from _Pepper_.

“All friends again?” she asked, and Tony squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could split himself in two, live the life where he broke her heart, but somehow spend the other as the man she deserved.

“Not really,” he said, then took a deep breath. Honesty. “I don’t know what Steve and I are to each other, but friends is not the right word. We’re… something else. Maybe something more.” She took her hand away. “I am so sorry, Pepper,” he said, the remorse so heavy within him. Yet she was looking back at him without any surprise, as if… He exhaled. Of course. She already knew.

Yet there were still tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry too. But after you left Earth, I made a decision, Tony.” And she held up her left hand.

Oh.

Unbelievable, that it had taken him this long to notice her engagement ring was gone. Nowhere to be seen. And cruelly, when he looked down, neither was his. Panic rose within him, mixed with other emotions he struggled to identify; sorrow of course, shame. Anger was in there, too; it seemed he could never come home after all, that Thanos had - even now - robbed him of the life he’d once lived for. But maybe, in some exhausted, unspeakable corner… relief.

Had Pepper felt relief?

He asked her and she laughed. Of all things, she laughed, but there was a bitterness to it that pierced him.

“I don’t think relieved is the right word for this feeling,” Pepper said. “That makes it sound like loving you was a duty. It never was that, Tony.” She hesitated. “But there is a certain comfort in knowing it’s over.” She pierced him with a stare, steel always, under the sunshine. “Maybe because I’m not that surprised. You and Steve… I’ve always felt there was something pulling you away. I thought it was the job you couldn’t quit. But now...”

“Pepper, I swear, I didn’t mean to-” Tony began but she interrupted, “I don’t _care_ , Tony.”

At his flinch, she shook her head, her expression softening. “No, I mean… it’s more that it doesn’t matter, you and Steve. Not for you and me. I was already done. One minute, we were in New York planning our wedding, you were talking about baby names, for Christ’s sake, and then the next you were gone, and I was alone, and you want to know the worst part? All I could think was, here we go again.”

Pepper was again trying to blink back tears, Tony’s heart crushing smaller and tighter as she continued. “But don’t try to tell me you would make any other choice. Even if you had known what it meant, what leaving would do to us. You will always leave me behind, without a second of hesitation. That’s part of who you are. It’s what makes you a hero. But it’s the one part of you, the one part of _us_ that I can’t make fit. Because I hate being left behind. I hate what it takes to love someone who would leave me behind.”

He wanted to protest, but she cut him off. “No, you need to hear this. After you left me in New York, I went home, I watched the news, and I cried. But then I had a moment where I realized, actually, I was okay. Whenever you leave me behind, I’m sad, I’m angry, but I’m okay. And that’s when I took off my ring, Tony, because I realized, I wanted us to fit together. I wanted you, so much. But I don’t actually _need_ you.”

“I need you,” he whispered. “Pepper, I don’t- you’re the love of my life.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pepper said, and gave the world’s saddest smile. “You’re not mine.”

Once, her words would have shattered him, but Tony just nodded, vaguely numb. She took his hand, kind even in this, and he kissed her fingers, refusing to hide his regret. People called him a genius but it was Pepper who had challenged him more than vice-versa, whose insight and wisdom he relied on more than anyone knew. Keeping up with her had been exhilarating, sometimes infuriating. Here again, she was speaking a truth he wanted to resist, except… he could see what she was saying. Sometimes pain could be as shocking in its absence as its presence; somehow now, under the shock… he was okay.

It was too late, he realized. The Tony who would have argued with her, who would have fought for her, the man she deserved: he was six months gone, wiped out with the snap of a madman’s fingers. Pepper, alive, was already a gift beyond measure. He could survive letting her go.

Shuri swept in accompanied by Peter - uh oh - who was carrying a tray of food. The no-longer-Queen commanded him to eat every bite to prove his recovery before dragging Peter out of the room again, although the kid didn’t exactly protest. Those two were going to be _trouble_. Tony tried his best to eat but it turned out getting dumped was even worse for the appetite than getting impaled. Not to mention the one reliable constant in the universe: hospital food sucked, even in Wakanda. To distract him from the bland meal, Pepper started asking him about the other future, and so he told her everything; even the Steve parts, at her request.

By the time Tony was done talking, his plate was empty and his blood sugar felt a little steadier; beyond that, it settled him, somehow, to speak the story out loud and make what had happened real outside his head. That other future had been comprehensively eradicated as a possibility; they would all be safe here in this weird, happy version of the world. Yet the memories were still alive within him, impossible horrors echoing through his head, even now. It may have been more convenient in the short term to stay quiet, act fine until they faded, pretend as if his phantom experiences were deletable, erasable. Convenient, but somehow horrifying; it felt too close to declaring himself deletable, if some miseries, some _lives_ , fell beyond the reach of acceptable, were deserving of being erased. He did not know why that idea felt so threatening - or maybe he did; hello, textbook narcissism - but that was a bargain he would never accept. Better to share; better to speak. Better, always, not to carry it alone.

Besides, even if this new future insisted he no could longer fit where he had once belonged, telling Pepper about his day had always been Tony’s favorite part of coming home.

After, Pepper kissed his forehead and told him she was proud of him; they sat together, then, enjoying an unfamiliar but comfortable silence, until Shuri returned and gave Tony the all clear to leave the lab. The Princess also offered him a replenished nanobots reservoir before she left, but he opted out. Not that. Not yet. Bickering pleasantly, Pepper helped him dress, the only option some soft loose Wakandan clothes that at least had a pleasing lack of itchy seams. Last time, the delay in getting back to Earth had left him with a lattice of angry tissue permanently etched into his side. This time, the wound had healed to a spooky degree, with only a faint scar marking the spot.

Once he was upright and fully clothed, Pepper yawned. “Okay, it’s close enough to night, I’m going to go find some kind of carb and then sleep off some of this jet-lag.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do you need me to… do you want company?”

She eyed him, then snorted. “Go find him, Tony.”

Preoccupied with guilt, it was only after she’d left and he was walking along a random corridor alone that he realized he had no clue where Steve might be. He nearly asked FRIDAY for the super-soldier’s location, but then remembered she hadn’t been installed here yet. Everything in the Wakandan palace looked the same, and yet it felt nothing like the place he had known. Tony spotted some familiar faces who stared at him without recognition, counted many unfamiliar faces; his ears caught snatches of cheerful, ordinary, wonderful conversations as he passed. Wandering these halls was like walking through a dreamworld, and the weirdness soon began to stretch him thin.

On autopilot, he eventually found his feet had led him to a particular door; he knocked, his mind loosely figuring it was as good a place as any to find himself a Steve.

But it was Barnes who answered; that successfully snapped Tony out of his trance. “Uh…” he said.

The former assassin seemed just as shocked. “You… looking for Steve?” he asked carefully.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Uh. Is he here?”

Barnes shook his head. “Sam just took him to grab a bite, but he’ll be back soon.” He paused, then pushed the door wider. Took a step back. “You can wait if you want.”

Given the last time Tony had seen the man he’d tried to kill him, it was a bold move. Decent, really. And Tony didn’t have it in him to refuse. “Thanks,” he said, and stepped into the small room. It too looked basically unchanged, except now, someone else’s stuff was scattered around, stuff he hadn’t seen before. Boots here. A metal arm there. Last time, Steve must have cleaned up before Tony got back from Titan. Funny. He’d never mentioned it was Bucky’s room originally. Made a certain sense. Close as he could get.

Barnes kicked the only chair towards him, opting himself to slouch against the wall. “You should sit,” he said. “Magic healing really wears you out.”

Tony accepted, then shot him a grin. “Call her work magic again and Shuri will end you.”

The former assassin chuckled, looking more relaxed than Tony could have imagined. “Well, you know, sufficiently advanced technology…”

That was a surprise. “You’re a Clarke fan?”

Barnes shrugged. “I like space stuff. Nakia gave me her old books. Said they were classics.”

“I’m more of an Asimov guy,” Tony said.

“Figures.” Then Barnes grinned, and Tony couldn’t help but return a smile. This was not nearly as awkward as he’d feared.

Until that is, Barnes opened his mouth again. “So. Stevie make a move yet?”

“Whuh,” said Tony, famed speaker of words. Surely that shouldn’t sound like it sounded. But instead of rephrasing, the former assassin folded his arms and let the question hang, only raising an eyebrow when Tony continued to be speechless.

“I take it that’s a no,” Barnes said mildly. “He probably won’t on his own, you know. He always did have a habit of waiting too long.”

Tony found his voice. “You think Steve… and me? Why? If anyone, it would be you-” He broke off when Barnes barked a laugh.

“Would that I could, pal,” the former assassin said, “but unlike Steve I’ve never had an eye for the fellas.”

“Steve… eyes fellas?” Tony felt like his mind was melting. Sure, he’d known how much Steve obviously loved Barnes, but he’d figured Barnes to be a special exception, not Steve’s general rule.

Barnes frowned. “Well, I mean… Times were rough back then, but he sure used to… Does he not anymore?”

“If he does, he didn’t show it,” Tony said, but his thoughts were racing. “Not to me, anyway.” Which hurt, a lot, because Tony had been consistently open about his bisexuality his whole adult life, certainly the whole time he’d known Steve. After the Accords fallout, he’d actually wondered if that had maybe offended the super-soldier’s old-fashioned sensibilities, had been another of his oblivious transgressions that had kept Steve apart from him, adding yet another issue to the list of topics which deserved a direct conversation between them.

But if Steve also liked men, why would Tony’s idiotic chattering bother him? And why would he choose to hide this part of himself now, here in a more tolerant century, among people that would clearly support him? The only answer that made sense to Tony is that, yet again, he had overestimated how close Steve had ever felt to the team. To Tony.

…but then what the hell had they shared these past six months?

“Siberia was tough on him, you know,” Tony heard Barnes say, and he blinked at the former assassin. “He hated fighting you.”

“He was protecting you,” Tony said. “I get it.”

Barnes shook his head. “He was protecting us both. Without him, I wouldn’t have fought back. It would have been murder.”

“It would have been murder either way,” Tony said softly. Which was a truth that only time and distance had allowed him to admit. It had felt bad, back then, to lose; he knew now he would never have forgiven himself if he’d won. Barnes just nodded, as if he understood Tony’s regret.

Probably he understood regret better than anyone.

“Stevie was in pieces after leaving you,” Barnes said after a pause, “but every time I brought it up he refused to talk about it, in that special stubborn Stevie way that means it’s important.” Slightly confused, Tony met his gaze, and the former assassin smirked, just a little. “Between you and me, I think he’s quite smitten.”

“Really? I’m not so sure,” Tony said; his voice cracked, stretched taut between want and doubt; the hope almost as wounding in presence as in absence.

Barnes muttered something under his breath in Russian which translated to, “dear god, there’s two of them.” Then Barnes was moving, grabbing a pillow off the bed and dropping it to the floor before sitting on it. He slouched back against the wall and sighed. “Look, Steve’ll be back soon, then you can talk to him yourself. In the meantime, tell me more about Asimov.”

Tony blinked down at him, grateful but slightly thrown by the sudden change of subject. “Plot, legacy or opinions?”

The former assassin shrugged. “How about reading order? Nakia had _The End of Eternity_ , but I’ve no idea where to go from there.”

“Uh, well, actually that’s a good place to start, kinda stand-alone but ties in later…”

 

 


	8. Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW  
> Warning: a character gets very low, check the tags if you haven't lately.

_restoration_

/rɛstəˈreɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. an act of repair._

_2\. a process of renewal._

_3\. a reconstruction or representation of something bygone or extinct._

 

***

 

There were several welcome faces gathered in the mess hall for the evening meal, but Sam carefully kept them at bay, leaving Steve to eat without interruption. Good.

He’d slept a long time, longer than he would have preferred, so by the time he got back to the lab he’d missed the rest of Tony’s surgery and most of the enhanced healing procedure. After Rhodey returned with Pepper, faces smooth with smiles and sympathy, Steve had left to give his report to the gathered team, which had not gone well. Ever since he’d woken up, despite his efforts to focus, he couldn’t seem to think straight. He knew what he wanted to say, but his mind kept dripping away from him in weird, loopy tangents; it took everything he had just to explain the broad strokes of Thanos’ previous victory, and how he and Tony had managed their return. On top of that, the team had new faces. New threats. When the green-skinned woman asked about Vormir, Steve had felt an overwhelming dizziness, had started stammering nonsense while everyone stared, and Sam had taken him back to the room. Bucky’s room. Steve had almost forgotten that.

They’d spent the rest of the day resting. Bucky telling them about his goats. Sam asking careful measured questions about their shared past, the erased future, projecting calm and reassurance even as Steve got lost in the details, so slow to assemble answers. Friend Sam. But also dragging Steve out of the room to get ‘fresh air and a proper meal’. Medic Sam. Annoying good.

The food was anonymous mush in his mouth, but Steve kept chewing. Tony would be waking soon, and Steve had to plan, had to think through what he wanted to say, but every time he tried his mind looped away again. Chewing. No taste. More damage, from the Stones? Or just the shock, like Sam kept saying. Reassuring. Good. But wrong. There was something wrong, Steve thought.

Chewing. Bland, nutritious. Good. No point. There was something very wrong, he thought.

Chewing. No point. Nothing. Gone.

He swallowed.

Took another bite.

Someone took the seat opposite him. “Hi, Steve,” she said. He chewed. Swallowed.

“Miss Potts,” he said.

She gave him a withering look. “Please. If you’re going to steal my boyfriend, I think you can at least call me Pepper,” she said; nearby, Sam choked on his drink.

Wrong. Gone. He gritted his teeth, trying to slow the loop. “I… I don’t…” Steve looked away to where a vase sat on a high shelf, full of fresh flowers. It had always been empty, before. Before the… When he… they… Gone. Wrong.

A gentle hand took his. “Steve? It was a joke, I was just trying to… are you okay?”

He looked up; she was in focus but everything else was blurring, melting. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I don’t…”

Pepper squeezed his hand. Kind. Wrong. Why? “I just wanted to let you know, I called off the wedding as soon as Tony left on that ship. So whatever you two have been up to these past six months, he’s not… He’s free to figure it out.”

Wrong. How?

She was shaking her head. Sad. Serious. Wrong. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of him, as much as he’ll let you. He needs- he deserves that, so much. And I think it’s all he’s ever really wanted. To be cared for, to be loved. To have someone who can be there through everything, not just the good times. Someone who will always have his back. I wanted that person to be me, we both did, but it never got any easier, and I… I just can’t take the stress anymore. It still hurts to let him go - _god_ it hurts, so much - but it’s better for me if I go back to being his friend, and let someone else be his person.”

Pepper eyed him, her gaze somehow both sympathetic and merciless; Steve bit back a sudden rising panic, uncertain of its origin. Wrong. _Wrong_. “I honestly never imagined it would be you, Steve, but I think it’s about six months too late for anyone to object. And at least, if it’s you, I know he won’t be alone, you’ll be right there fighting beside him-”

Wrong-wrong-nothing-gone: “NO!”

He was on his feet, his chair knocked to the floor, Pepper staring up at him in astonishment. “No,” he told her again, as if it would explain everything, but Sam tried to take his arm and Steve flinched away, then fled to where the eyes couldn’t follow, the worried voices couldn’t reach.

Sam caught up but didn’t touch him this time, just kept pace beside him as Steve slowed his walk, got his breathing back under control. Gone. “You good, man?” Sam asked eventually.

Steve stopped abruptly, surprising the former medic. “There’s something wrong with me,” he told him; fast, before the words could melt away again. Broken, wrong, nothing, gone…

“Okay,” Sam said, after a beat. “That’s okay, Steve. We’ll get you help.”

Wrong, thought Steve, in sudden bone-wrenching exhaustion. There was no help. No oasis. No hope. Nothing.

Sam was still talking. “How about we head to the lab, have Bruce or Shuri look you over-” No point. No help. Not them. Not…

Broken, wrong, nothing, gone…

“I want to sleep,” Steve said, and walked away. He heard Sam follow, could feel the worry emanating from his friend but inside there was nothing where his own care should be.

The room wasn’t far; he walked in and stopped. The room was unchanged, the room was changed. Not like the last time. Just like last time.

Bucky. Sitting slouched on the floor, relaxed; then standing, eyes narrowing, concern like a hunger.

Tony. Stretched out on the bed, arms gesturing widely as he argued with the ceiling, “…which meant that when we were drafting the New Accords we could actually draw on the three laws as inspiration -” He too looked up. Saw. Stood.

Steve swayed on his feet. It was the room and Tony was there. Just like last time.

But no. This time they’d won.

But somehow it was worse.

How wrong had he become, that this time was _worse_?

Under that thought, he broke. Sam caught him just in time to lower him to the floor, then Tony was kneeling before him, and Steve buried his face in Tony’s neck and clung tight, trying to hide, his whole body shaking. Hide from the eyes. Always eyes. Watching, needing, seeking, feeding. Even good, even friends. “Easy, Steve, easy,” Tony was whispering, soothing. Always the one holding him together. The only one who might let him fall apart. Broken, wrong, nothing, gone…

By the time the shaking had eased to the odd tremor, he was able to hear the words Tony had been repeating quietly in his ear. “Easy, Steve, I’ve got you. Just talk to me, please. Tell me what you need.”

“Just you,” Steve whispered. “Only you. Please.” He heard muttered voices around him, then Bucky and Sam were gone, and it was just Steve and Tony, Tony who was still with him, still there. For a long minute they sat quietly together on the floor, limbs entwined, and it should have been peaceful but Steve could still feel his mind dripping away, sliding deeper into some unfathomable abyss, an opposite sky into which he could sink and lose himself, filling with emptiness forever and ever. Some distant part of him admired the irony that, of all things, he might be running out of time; then the sick stab of panic arrived, and he sat bolt upright to look Tony in the eye.

“I’m going to live forever,” he blurted out. Tony blinked, looking so confused that Steve hacked out a laugh, an awful cheerless sound. “Shuri said. The serum changed me, Tony. It wasn’t the ice. I can’t age. So I won’t die.” Broken. Wrong.

Tony was studying him with such care. “Some people would consider that a miracle,” he said.

He didn’t get it. Tony didn’t… He was right, Steve should be grateful, should be strong, should wait out the panic like he always had before but - nothing, _gone_ \- instead he felt an inexorable tide rise within him, despair spilling from his mouth, secret words, wrong words.

“I know, I know but… I can’t, Tony, I… The future, it’s… There’ll always be a fight, and this means there’ll always be me, so I’ll have to keep fighting, and I can do it, I can fight but every time it takes more and it’s blocking me out, he’s blocking me out so there’s room for nothing else and there’s nothing left except fighting and waiting and watching everyone go on without me and it’s too much, I can’t, I’m not- I’m tired, I don’t want to fight anymore, please don’t make me fight, Tony, I’m nearly gone, it’s gone, there’s nothing left and _I don’t know what to do,_ I don’t want this, _I can’t_ -”

Secret words, danger, unstoppable. Wrong.

Yet Tony had gathered him into his lap and was rocking him back and forth, still there despite the words. Not gone.

“I need help,” Steve said through numb lips. “Tony. Please? Can you- will you help me?”

“Yes, of course, always,” Tony whispered. Then he braced Steve’s head between his hands, forcing Steve to watch him, hear him. “I swear to you, Steven Grant Rogers, I am going to help you. Whatever it takes.” Tony looked all scrunched up, as if he was trying not to cry. “It’s going to be okay, Steve, I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

“No more fighting?” Steve asked, his weariness ice-heavy.

Tony rested his forehead on Steve’s. “No more fighting.”

Tony had heard. Tony had promised. And Tony was still here. It was more than Steve could have dreamed, and the relief kept the words flooding out, a stuttering torrent that skipped haphazardly between sentences, nonsense swirls of half thoughts and memory fragments snagging on each other, as if fighting for release. Tony listened anyway, quiet as he steered Steve to the bed, settled him in to rest, held him close like some rare, fragile thing; somehow his attention helped the sharp pieces slide free, his presence smoothing them out, one by one. The surface part of Steve drifted through it all, wrapped warm and content in Tony’s arms, listening in fascination to his own voice babbling, on and on, until the torrent eventually slowed to a trickle, then eased, leaving only the occasional drip of sleepy whispers in the silence.

“Tony?” Steve heard himself ask, sometime later. “You still there?”

“I’m here,” came Tony’s soft reply.

“I have a… There’s something I wanted to ask you for years, but it was never the right time… do you think… I mean, can now be good?” His voice sounded so wistful and lonely; through the haze Steve wondered what the question might be.

“Now can be good, Steve,” Tony said. “It’s okay. Ask whatever you want.”

“Oh,” and Steve heard himself sigh, “okay, it’s just… do you think you could ever love me back?”

The sharp intake of breath by his ear shocked Steve’s brain into something like alertness, knocked him right out of the drift and back into his body; every part of him scrambling to take it back. Danger. Wrong. “Wait, no, no, don’t answer that,” Steve said desperately, trying to dispel the sudden tension he felt in Tony’s arms and body. “That’s not… It’s not a fair question, I shouldn’t have… You’re alive, you’ve always been so alive and I’m- it’s not- no, stop, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t _worry_ about it?” Tony repeated, sounding scandalized, and Steve rushed to explain.

“I mean it’s fine, I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about me. Even if you can’t help me, don’t worry, I’ll be okay, Tony. Right now there’s Indonesia, Japan, Sumatra, it’s fine. I have it covered.” He shut his mouth with a snap, too late. Steve never ran the names out loud, not ever.

There were rules.

He had rules.

“Wait- Steve? What… what are you talking about?” Tony’s voice rang harsh with fear; Steve regretted ever speaking a word, ever waking, ever trying, broken _wrong_ nothing _gone_ -

“It’s okay, Tony. It’s not your problem,” Steve said. And it was true. He had it covered.

“Steve,” Tony said, sharp hands clutching, ragged panic hanging off his words. “ _Please_ , talk to me. What are you saying? What do those places mean?”

He could already tell that Tony wasn’t going to let it go, that it was only a matter of time now before his genius mind figured it out, and maybe it would be good if Tony knew that Steve could be okay without him. Then Tony wouldn’t feel pressured to stay. Freedom was important. Steve kept his eyes squeezed closed, weary. Duty was the cold place.

“Exit strategy,” he said. Dead garden, empty sky. “I thought, since the ice didn’t work, fire might. And this way, there’s no mess. So you see? You don’t have to do anything, Tony. Either way, I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh my god,” Tony murmured, “ _Steve_ , oh my _god_ ,” and for some reason Tony was weeping, saying that he was sorry, that he didn’t know, over and over. Steve didn’t really understand what was happening but Tony was upset so he tried to fix it, rattling off the active names for back home - Hawaii, Guatemala - but that just made Tony sob harder.

So Steve thought it best to apologize, untangled himself and pushed Tony away to a safe distance so he could properly say how sorry he was for bothering him, but Tony’s face kept doing a strange crumpled thing so that didn’t help either, Steve’s teeth beginning to chatter from the seeping cold while he begged for Tony to forgive him, told him all the best ways to forget him. But no matter what Steve said, there was Tony, waiting and listening until he ran out of words again; then he was gathering Steve back in his arms and Steve didn’t know where else to go so in the end he just let Tony carry him through, the other man holding his body close, murmuring soft words in his ear. Warm words. Impossible words. Steve knew he should keep himself awake, should listen to the words until he believed, until he deserved, but there was so much wrapped up in them that he couldn’t quite reach, and he was so tired. He was just so goddamn tired.

He fell asleep, adrift in impossible promises.

Sleep brought him impossible dreams.

 

***

 

Contrary to popular opinion, even among his friends, Tony Stark knew all too well that he had a heart.

How could he not? It’d been broken often enough. And each time felt like the worst time, until the next time. As a kid, losing faith in his parents’ love, then losing them completely. As an adult, learning how deeply his life’s work had harmed the world, then learning why. As an Avenger, being considered a liability, then proving himself one. He’d thought Germany had to be his ultimate low, from his decision to recruit a literal child right through to watching Rhodey fall from the sky. All because he’d placed too much faith in a friendship he’d desperately chased, one he’d never really thought he deserved but tried to live up to anyway.

Then he’d gone to Siberia. Learned the truth. Lost his friend. Proved himself as unworthy as he’d always feared, all in one fell swoop. Steve had needed to shatter the arc reactor to stop him, but Tony’s heart had long since been destroyed.

The one silver lining of the whole mess was that Tony could at last understand where he had gone so desperately wrong. Steve would move heaven and earth for his friends, as demonstrated by the Barnes saga, but he wouldn’t so much as stop and hear Tony out; ergo, Steve had never been his friend.

However that brutal truth made him feel, it was better that he knew. Easier. Uncomplicated. And for two years, he’d poured his full attention into moving on. Had tried to be more responsible, towards his former team, towards the world. With his international fleet of legal teams, he had modified the worst of the Accords, shaping them towards a far more practical, efficient design. He’d reported to Ross, been civil to his face, mentored the kid behind the politician’s back. Breaking the rules, yeah, but _responsibly_.

And it had _worked_ , was the thing. Clint and Scott had been allowed to come home to their families, and he was close to pardons for the rest. Peter had been safe. And somewhere in the middle of all of that responsibility, Pepper had decided he was worth marrying, and had proposed. For the first time, every part of his life made sense to him, and it all had been going great, up until a wizard popped out of a portal and ruined his day.

Then a madman snapped his fingers and stole his future.

And now, Steve Rogers had asked an impossible question, shattering everything he thought he knew of their past.

The other man was fast asleep, looking deceptively peaceful, but Tony couldn’t stop himself checking his breathing, his pulse. Suddenly he didn’t want to take anything for granted. It was just that Steve had always been so… Steve. Strong, reliable, determined. Previously he would have thought these words an insult, that such ordinary words could only fail to capture the extraordinary depths of the man.

But thoughts like that were part of the problem, he realized now. Ordinary or not, Steve was just a man who had been placed in extraordinary circumstances, and no one had recognized in time the extraordinary effort it must have taken for Steve to rise to their expectations, never mind surpass them, over and over. Tony himself had been the worst offender in those early years, happily ducking out of every possible responsibility to pursue only the fun bits of being an Avenger. He’d learned too well since the Accords fallout just how much of Steve’s labor had gone unremarked, how much silent fear and stress and doubt there was in being a real leader. But Tony was lucky; he’d had Pepper and Rhodey to vent to, trusting in the low moments that his oldest friends would listen to him as a person first and worry about what it meant for the team later. Did Steve have anyone he could trust like that?

Heartbreak had nothing on the thought of Steve Rogers being lonely.

And now… Tony swallowed, tightened his arms around the sleeping man, as if that alone could keep Steve safe. The one lifeline that had kept him sane through the past six months was the knowledge that if they were successful, if the wizard was right, then the unfolding horrors were only going to be temporary, and someday, for someone, everything would be okay again. The belief had kept him skimming over the surface of all those desperate weeks, had provided him with the necessary mental leverage to survive the setbacks, the doubt, the fucked up sickening wrongness everywhere he looked. Even through every golden moment he got to spend with Steve, Tony had kept part of himself clear, aloof, because his faith in the wizard’s end meant believing he couldn’t keep any of it, the good or the bad, and so, right to the end, he had kept himself ready to let go.

The belief had sheltered him, he knew, had prevented the horrors from sticking as deeply as they could. Surviving the return with those memories intact had been a shock, yes, but one he felt he could live with, given time. Yet Tony’s burden of memories faded to nothing compared to Steve’s experiences. The other man had spent months staring out at the end of the world, a front row witness to unbearable horrors, aware that helping was futile but _doing it anyway_ … And being so _Steve_ about it all that Tony hadn’t been too concerned.

Finding out that Steve was this close to breaking - had maybe been broken, unnoticed, for a while - was like watching the world end all over again.

Tony gritted his teeth against yet another wave of slow, hot tears, trying to shelve his own misery but failing. It wasn’t fair. This was supposed to be the better future, the one where everyone could live mundanely ever after, as happily or as miserably as they wanted. To win it back, Tony had been willing to sacrifice everything, pay any price. But not this. Not _Steve_. Not if he could help it.

No, if money could buy it, if he could build it, if there was something, anything on this planet or beyond that would help Steve Rogers live happy and healthy and safe… There was no other way he would let this end.

“Whatever it takes,” Tony whispered into the quiet, unheard, unwitnessed. Yet it was as solemn an oath as any he’d taken, and he felt its purpose settle into his bones. The Soul Stone had given him a vision for the future beyond compare, but as it turned out, he had two jobs now. Help Steve. Help the universe. That was the order of importance. Maybe the only possible order. Maybe both the same job, from the inside. Help one. Help everyone.

His thoughts were snagging on each other, and he realized in a soft rolling way that he was getting sleepy. Magic healing. Takes it out of you, Barnes had said. Takes out the pain, takes out the injury. But leaves the absence, Tony thought. Leaves a wrong sort of nothing. Discarded memories. Ghosts and candlelight.

Steve lives in a haunted house, he thought.

Tony fell asleep.

 

***

 

He’d fallen asleep.

The bed was cold beside him, he’d fallen asleep and Steve was _gone_.

Tony sprang out of the bed, cursing his earlier self for kicking off his shoes, stuffing a foot into the first soft sneaker he found while hopping towards the door, scrambling and-

-the ensuite bathroom door opened, and Steve emerged, froze. Beard gone. Explaining the Steve-gone. The cold bed.

The other man was staring at Tony, taking in his hand on the door handle, the other shoe he was holding. Then he was looking away, blank. “You’re leaving?”

At first, pure relief kept Tony stuck in place, speechless. But the carefully hidden hurt in Steve’s voice cracked his heart wide open, and then - despite his mind listing a thousand reasons why this was a _terrible_ idea, was too much, was too soon, that he should wait until Steve was in a better headspace, until they both were - Tony was dropping the shoe and closing the remaining distance between them, was reaching for Steve, was kissing Steve as if it meant life itself. Because it did, it _did_ , and then Steve was kissing him back, was in fact pinning Tony against the bathroom door and devouring him, ravenous, his mouth eager enough, _right_ enough, to sweep every last one of his doubts away.

Steve’s hands greedily explored Tony’s body, found his ass, squeezed; the other man lifted him easily - _hot_ , Tony’s mind pronounced this- and stumbled them both towards the bed. Tony seized the opportunity to trail kisses down his neck, eliciting all kinds of breathy groans. Distracted, Steve dropped Tony haphazardly onto the bed before collapsing atop him; Tony twisted beneath him, yanking up the other man’s shirt, pressing his lips to whatever skin he could reach. “ _Tony_ ,” Steve breathed against his ear, his name sending scalding electric sparks all the way to his cock. He pushed Steve to sit up and helped pull the shirt over his head, then for a good eight point three seconds forgot how to breathe. He’d seen Steve shirtless before, of course, but in this moment…

Holy mother of _abs_.

Steve was reaching for him now, was frowning at Tony’s own shirt, had grabbed a handful of the fabric near the neck. “May I?” he asked; Tony nodded, neither knowing nor caring what he was agreeing to because the mannerliness of the request paired with the wild look in Steve’s eyes was giving him heart feelings mixed with dick feelings and they really did go together nicely in a wine and cheese sort of a-

In one quick motion, Steve ripped Tony’s shirt right off his body and Tony threw his heart in a box for later because oh my _god_ , Steve, and then they were kissing again, skin on heated skin, and it was both too much and not enough. Tony wanted to stay just like this forever but also wanted to break away because they were just _kissing_ and he was already so hard he was about to lose his damn mind and, judging from what he could gloriously feel grinding against his leg, so was Steve. According to what was left of his brain, that opened up a whole buffet of possible further activities, potentially leading him to other parts of Steve, to _more Steve_ , and, in service to the metaphor, Tony was _hungry_.

At some point they had rolled so Tony was now on top; he sat up, his resolve nearly breaking when Steve literally whined and reached as if to draw Tony down to his mouth again. “Easy,” he whispered, grabbing the man’s outstretched hand and pressing kisses over his knuckles. Then he slid a finger under the waistband of Steve’s pants, inhaling sharply when the other man bucked his hips in helpless, clumsy reflex.

“May I?” he asked, breathless. Steve’s eyes held his, lust-dark and open; for one dizzying, chaotic moment Tony felt real but unreal, ready but eternally unready, caught in a fever dream from which he never wanted to wake, but Steve’s nod rang through him like a bell, calling him back to action. Tony grinned back and began sliding down Steve’s pants, moving as slowly as he could bear, but this was revealing new parts of Steve, naked skin he’d definitely never seen before and he was unable to resist licking the muscular crease that arced beneath Steve’s hipbone, because oh _my_ god. Was this religion?

“I’m gonna make you feel so good, Steve,” Tony murmured, beyond paying attention to what he was saying anymore.

Which may have been a mistake, because next thing he knew, Steve was sitting up and was holding Tony’s head between his hands, keeping his mouth away from Steve’s body. “Please tell me that’s not… Is that all this is, Tony?” Steve asked, and Tony could have wept at the shuttered look on his face.

Instead of answering, Tony took Steve’s hand and placed it squarely on his own crotch, so there could be no mistaking the situation there. This was not a subtle move, since he figured the bulge could probably be seen from space. The other man looked down, then back up at him, his expression still closed off, still unreadable.

“It turns out, “ Tony said, trying for calm but failing miserably, “that I really, _really_ want your cock in my mouth.”

And Steve’s eyes darkened again, his lips quirking upward, and then - oh my god - the other man was squeezing Tony’s dick through his pants, caressing him with fingers that were anything but shy; this time Tony was the one to whine - out loud, like a _dog_ \- and he couldn’t even be embarrassed.

“In that case,” Steve said, sounding calm in an offensively successful way, “carry on.” Then the man had the nerve to lay back and smirk at him, so naturally Tony had to spend a minute or two kissing him long and slow because apparently he did have the fluid capacity to run his dick and his heart at the same time. Who knew.

But that sentimental interlude led to a second revelation, because out of the two of them it was _Steve_ who first ran out of patience, sitting them both upright and swinging his legs off the side of the bed, whereupon Tony graciously decided it might be time to move along. He slid down onto the floor, ignoring any complaints from his knees and helped Steve finish kicking off his pants, revealing no underwear - Cap, you icon - and a cock so impeccably sculpted that Tony heard choirs of delirious angels sing in his head. Eureka. Hallelujah.

Desperate to soak in every detail of this moment, Tony glanced up at Steve’s face as his fingers slid home; greedily he memorized the smooth slide of skin beneath his grip, Steve’s radiant expression, the tiny shocked gasp that fell from the other man’s mouth at his touch. Steve. Tony bent forward, kissing a line from Steve’s inner thigh all the way along his length, then opened his mouth and swallowed him down, pride cascading like sparks throughout his body as he heard Steve stutter his name in a hoarse, panting cry.

Steve liked to swear, Tony discovered. Steve was _bossy_ , Tony learned. And Steve tasted _so good_.

Still afire with that glorious impatience, Steve soon took over fucking his mouth, hands carefully gripping the back of Tony’s head, demanding just the right angle, the right speed. And as ever, inspiring heroics on Tony’s part; years without practice had left him a little rusty but he opened his throat and tried to keep up, taking as much of Steve as he could. The barrage of relentless sensation was overwhelming, exhilarating; Tony was on the ground but he was soaring; it felt like the best parts of flying, of fighting, falling without fear of crashing, and the giddying thought came that he could be happy living the rest of his life in devotion to this, only this; the thought made him hum happily around Steve’s length.

From somewhere above, Steve muttered something breathlessly unintelligible that may have included his name; then the other man sped up, helplessly thrusting in needy little jerks that deepened until Tony was left gasping for air, reeling for balance because the world no longer included up or down, left or right, back or forward; only Steve and not-Steve; only Tony, lost, and Tony, found. With a merciless groan Steve came, hard and fast, fingers clenched tight in Tony’s hair with just the right amount of carelessness, just on the right side of rough.

Perfection, Tony thought, when at last he could think again.

Leaving a sprawled Steve extinguished on the bed, Tony got up to fetch a wet cloth from the bathroom, surprised to discover he was still wearing his left shoe. That seemed a worthy testament to the urgency of recent events, but for dignity’s sake, he kicked it off before returning to bed. As he finished wiping them both down, Steve’s eyes fluttered open. “Tony? Are you… Was that okay?” he asked, his words slurring together.

Tony could barely conceal his smugness, and he pressed a kiss on the other man’s forehead. “Not to brag, but _that_ ,” he whispered, “was the hottest fucking blowjob in the entire history of the universe.” Steve gave him a proud sloppy grin in response.

Then his gaze raked Tony up and down before settling on his crotch, his smirk turning competitive. “Well,” he said, “so far, maybe.”

Tony knew that look. _The_ look. Man with a plan.

_Ohmygod_.

“Are- are you sure?” Tony asked, his last brain cell on duty working hard not to be selfish. “You know you don’t have to rush into anything.” Steve shot him such a weird look that for a second Tony thought he’d said something to offend him. “I just mean it’s okay if you want to wait, your first time should be special-”

The other man was laughing at him, but in that golden Steve way that felt like sunshine. “Tony, do you seriously think this is my first time with another man?”

Tony was not blushing. He was not. “Uh… I may have considered that to be a possibility…”

Steve silenced him with a kiss, apparently unperturbed by where Tony’s mouth had just been, which in itself was hot as _fuck_. “Contrary to popular assumption,” he murmured against Tony’s lips, “casual sex was not invented in the sixties. I’ve slept with men before, Tony. Women too.” He drew back a little, the confident smirk back on his face. “But when it comes to the act of sucking dick specifically,” and a low Brooklyn drawl slipped into his voice as he nuzzled Tony’s shoulder, “let me tell ya, on all the tours, across multiple continents,” Steve paused, dipped his tongue into the hollow of Tony’s throat, “I got nothin’ but rave reviews.” Then he flashed a flawless all-American grin that, when connected to those abs and that dick, was just not _fair_. “Five stars, usually.”

“That, uhhh- that’s some pretty big talk you got there, Rogers,” Tony babbled weakly just to make noise, his last brain cell having evidently quit to join the rest on some other better plane of existence, goodbye and good riddance.

Steve moved to cover him, his bulk pinning Tony in place. “Well, I got a pretty big mouth,” he murmured, but even in the face of such corniness Tony had nothing left to say because all blood was now south of the border and he couldn’t think in words, what were words, how words? And Steve was kissing him deep, slowly, possessively, as if he already knew that Tony was all his, he’d gotten the keys and was just enjoying the view before the moving van showed up to make it official-

“Hnghhh _fuck_ ,” Tony groaned when Steve moved to sucking hard on his neck, proving himself still capable of some speech.

“Language,” the other man admonished him without stopping what he was doing, and Tony heard himself giggle- oh, and _that_ earned him teeth.

Steve pulled away then, leaned away and frowned at Tony’s pants. His tiny pout was so adorable that Tony sat up for more kisses but Steve soon pushed him flat again. “I want to look at you,” the other man murmured, and Tony sank back. The air felt cool on his chest after the warmth of Steve’s skin, felt cooler still when Tony ran out of patience and freed himself of his own pants and underwear, kicking them to the floor. Yet Steve still made no move; instead his gaze traveled slowly up and down Tony’s naked body; the awareness of being seen, like _this_ , by _Steve_ , heated Tony from within, until he felt himself melt into a puddle of mindless anticipation.

“Steve, _please_ ,” he managed to say, barely recognizing the thready voice as his own; as if he’d been waiting for Tony to ask, the other man swooped in and pressed hard searing kisses against his stomach, his hipbone, the inside of his thigh. Then- oh sweet holy god in heaven- his cock was in Steve’s mouth and Tony was gone again, was infinite, was fire and life in a thousand directions, but this time he wasn’t lost, wasn’t dying, because every road was leading him back home to Steve’s heat. Steve’s _tongue_.

He could hear himself panting, sobbing, moaning Steve’s name in a babble of nonsense but nothing needed to make sense because Steve was gripping him now in one hand, holding Tony together while licking the tip of his cock, teasing him, testing him and then Steve’s mouth had lifted away - fuck, no, _please_ \- and was asking Tony for permission, was waiting until Tony made sense again and then- _ah_ \- Steve had taken him deep once more, heat and stars, everything, everything, while Steve’s hand was sliding under Tony, eager fingers seeking, and just that first brush of contact against his asshole had Tony punching at the mattress because what the fuck else had he been doing with his life and yes, he begged, Steve, more, that, pleaseplease _please-_

But the wretch slowed down instead, a denial which itself felt like a declaration of war; Steve, of course, playing the perfect soldier, marching off to battle armed only with spit and a plucky 1940s attitude. God. _God_. Moving in slow, wretched pulses, Steve worked Tony’s cock with his mouth, his ass with his fingers, advancing then retreating, one then the other, the steady momentum pushing and pulling Tony someplace beyond thought, beyond words; at last, Steve swallowed him full, slipped two spit-slicked fingers deep, and commanded Tony’s soul to explode from his body.

Tony obeyed, because what else.

_Steve_.

Tony found his way back to full cognition eventually, still twitching from aftermath. Opening his eyes, he saw above him a serene, not-at-all-smug Steve wiping him down with a fresh cloth. Tony lay quiet, unable to imagine a benefit to ever moving again, and watched the other man care for him. There was a contented curve to Steve’s lips that Tony approved of, even if it meant Steve had won. Tony might even let him win again, for the scientific benefit of, uhhh… astronomy. Five stars? Galaxies. When he was done, Steve tossed the cloth aside and began studying Tony’s body again, but this time he didn’t keep his distance; instead he reached out to brush his fingers along the myriad scars visible on Tony’s skin.

Tony was content to let Steve do whatever he wanted, but the other man didn’t look so happy any more. “All good?” Tony asked, his voice raspy.

Steve avoided meeting his eyes, fingers still following the lines of Tony’s scars. “I was just wondering… whether it’s weird that I know what most of these are from.”

“You do?” Tony asked, surprised. Even he didn’t really know anymore. There’d been so many minor injuries over the years; even the major ones had started to blur together.

“Sure. This is the one you just got on Titan, obviously,” Steve said, tapping the barely visible scar on his side. Then he bent in to kiss it. Tony held his breath, unexpectedly moved by the delicacy of the gesture. Steve’s fingers traced further along his body. “Those two are from New York. That’s from the first Sokovia strike.” Tony watched as Steve continued talking, the other man absorbed in reading Tony’s skin, calling up memories Tony himself had long forgotten, then kissing them back to silence.

“You were really paying attention, huh,” Tony said softly, when Steve’s words ran dry.

The other man paused. “Always,” he said; then he cleared his throat, playfully tapped on a small angry scar on Tony’s shoulder, voice teasing. “Now this one, I don’t know. Do I even want to ask, or…?”

Tony felt his throat tighten. Probably he should opt for caution here, should wait until they were both in a better place to deal with this, but… truth was truth. “Siberia,” he said.

Steve drew in one sharp, shaky breath. Then he pushed himself higher in the bed, and lay sideways beside Tony, not quite touching him. “All mine faded,” he said.

Tony reached out and traced his fingertips along Steve’s face, across his closed eyes. Blond eyelashes. “I’ll mark you yet.”

Steve’s eyes flew open with a groan; he flashed Tony a look of such want that Tony felt even his own depleted cock stir in response. Then Steve was over him, owning him, lips and teeth and fire, groaning his name and grinding what could not possibly be but impossibly _was_ yet another erection against his thigh, an ode to scientific endeavor everywhere.

Caught right on the edge of overwhelmed, Tony found he had to break away for breath, had to turn his head to evade Steve’s feverish kisses, but even then he found no pause, no relief. Instead, he felt the universe tilt sideways again in one inexorable slide, as if he had slipped once more beyond some irresistible precipice, but cast out from familiar perspective, Tony couldn’t put a name to what he was feeling, terror or joy; couldn’t decide whether he wanted to cry or laugh; was torn between wanting this moment to last forever and thinking he might die if he didn’t stop everything right now because how could he let himself have this when he couldn’t possibly survive losing it. Almost, it was too much; almost, he pulled away.

Instead he opened his eyes, looked to Steve, saw; and there in Steve he found a universe that had been right side up all along, found a math that finally, miraculously, ran true; only then arrived the name for what he was feeling; then, heart and mind, he knew.

“Tony,” Steve panted in his ear, “can I ask you something-” but Tony seized Steve’s face between his hands and kissed him quiet, still. Holy and deep.

“Yes,” Tony breathed, when he pulled back, Steve looking at him wide-eyed. “Your question. From before. My answer is yes.” He waited for Steve to recall, his own heart aching at the memory; the soft longings spilled in the night.

“You…” Steve bowed his head as the realization hit, then he raised himself on his elbow and stared down at Tony as if he was still the key to saving the universe. “You really think you could?”

And even that broke Tony’s heart, in its restraint. Fuck caution. “No, Steve. I already _do_ ,” he said; he watched in awe as Steve Rogers smiled with his whole soul, his face lit up like a goddamn fireworks display, and if there was ever going to be a more beautiful sight in the universe then Tony had no interest in seeing it.

“You…” Steve ducked his head, licked his lips, hazy with joy. Then his eyes latched onto Tony’s, and his voice wasn’t hazy at all. “Say it,” he demanded. Commanded.

Tony felt a swell of savage emotion within him. Bless this man. “I love you,” he said, breathless with everything else he was leaving unsaid. Steve tilted his head to one side. Considered him. Scorched him. Tony felt heat rise within him again, his body answering the call.

But Steve made no further move. “Actually, Tony, you should know… I was about to ask a different question,” he said, voice brutal in its restraint, because there were _all kinds_ of possibilities lurking under those words, all kinds of ideas in those darkened blue eyes.

Tony blinked up at him, breathless with sudden anticipation. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. Then the man said nothing more, instead just licked his lips and waited, eyes smoldering. Beautiful. Wretched.

“Goddamn it, just _ask_ , Steve, god, whatever you want,” Tony blurted out, clumsy with desperation.

The other man leaned in low, breath hot on his cheek. “Tony Stark,” he murmured, almost a growl. “May I please fuck your ass?”

Tony nearly sobbed, “oh my god, same answer, fucking _yes_ , Steve-” and then he was enveloped in Steve’s arms, pinned under Steve’s weight, Steve’s tongue claiming his mouth; every part of Tony surrendered, drifting further into a bliss he’d never known he’d been missing. Just in time, one last brain cell fired in self-preservation, and he opened reluctant eyes, chattered reluctant words, “wait, wait, hang on, we’re gonna need…”

But of course, Steve had come prepared - Cap smirk - and was already holding up a small bottle that Tony recognized as lube.

“Where?” Tony managed to ask.

Steve tapped his freshly shaved chin in response. “Strategic recon.” His smug grin grew wider. “Turns out it’s considered standard bathroom issue here.”

Beyond care for his dignity, Tony giggled in delight. “Wakanda forever.”

But the other man had already seized Tony’s face between his hands and now kissed him to gasping before pulling back again, a tight, serious look on his face. “Last call, Tony. You want this?”

Truth. “I want this, I want you, Steve, _everything_ ,” Tony breathed in a low, husky voice; he felt Steve’s whole body shudder in response, but the other man kept himself together long enough to drop one delicate kiss upon Tony’s lips.

His gentleness was hard won, because this time Tony was the impatient one, begging Steve to fuck him almost before Steve had opened the lube bottle. The other man refused his pleas, pooling the cool liquid in his hand before hauling Tony to lie on top of him and kissing him quiet in one smooth motion. With that same wretched deliberation as before, adding one slick finger at a time, Steve worked his ass open, ignoring how Tony was swearing against his mouth, a long desperate string of curses in several different languages. When Tony felt the third finger stretch him unspeakably wide, he couldn’t take the thought of waiting anymore, sat up and away, far enough to make his point. “ _Please_ , Steve, _now_ , I’m ready, I swear, I want you to fuck me right now, _please_ …”

The look Steve gave him in response was almost helpless, and Tony realized with a vicious thrill that despite the slow pace he’d set, the other man was barely hanging onto his self-control. “Tony. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Rolling onto his back, Tony grabbed the lube and unceremoniously began coating Steve’s cock, already painfully hard and leaking; the other man folded at his touch, curling in to bury his cry against Tony’s shoulder. “I’m ready for you, I promise, I want this, Steve, I want you, I love you-” Tony chanted, somehow desperate to be heard, believed.

It was enough. Steve cut him off with a kiss that tasted of surrender then took himself in hand, and Tony helped guide Steve home. As the first delicious stretch intensified almost to pain, Tony groaned Steve’s name aloud. The other man drew in a sharp hooked breath and closed his eyes, but kept pressing deeper, careful yet relentless. It was so close to too much, but also not enough. Tony reached up and gripped Steve’s head in his hands, watched how concentration painted lines on his face, adored him. And then Steve was fully within him, and it was too much, and it would never be enough.

The other man opened his eyes, looked down at him. “Tony,” he said seriously. “I love you.”

A golden sort of happiness flooded through Tony, warm dawn after the longest night, but Steve didn’t wait for him to respond. Instead, the other man looked down and Tony’s gaze followed as if dragged; they both watched as Steve pulled out halfway, only to slide slowly back inside him, and Tony felt a cascade of pleasure detonate throughout his entire body. The noises he made as a result were both embarrassingly loud and mathematically inevitable but Steve gave the sexiest groan in history in response, falling in to bury his face in Tony’s neck while muttering his own string of curses.

After a slight pause, the other man began to roll his hips, the deliberate movements eliciting further sobbing cries from Tony which this time Steve resolutely ignored. Once Tony was clearly settled around him, Steve withdrew almost the full way before sliding home, again, then again, his thrusts deep but still so tender, still so restrained.

Too restrained, given what Tony craved, in this one moment, more than he’d ever craved anything in his stupid glorious life. “Steve,” Tony whispered breathlessly, “please, harder.” The other man shuddered and stopped moving, looking down at him with blue eyes so impossibly earnest and _Steve_ that Tony might have cried were it not for the catastrophic emergency that had been initiated by Steve not moving anymore that left Tony thinking he might genuinely expire in the next ten seconds. 

“Sweetheart, I promise the next dozen times we do this we will go as slow as you want but right now I’m kinda losing my mind so I’m gonna need you to fuck my ass like you need it to breathe.” He was babbling nonsense and he was being greedy and for one long unbearable moment, Steve just stared at him, wild-eyed. Then he settled one soft kiss on the corner of Tony’s mouth before he drew back, lips curved, eyes afire, and Tony nearly whined out loud because _that look_ , oh _god_.

And because Steve Rogers was never anything less than polite, he then began to fuck Tony as requested, setting a near-punishing rhythm that once more skated the line between too rough and not enough, that once more bordered on reckless in the best possible way. Finding himself surrounded by Steve, heart, body and mind, Tony was delirious, incandescent; his pleasure building and surging towards a glorious reckoning that he knew would consume him utterly, a destruction he welcomed with his whole heart, knew to be just another face of renewal.

“Yes. Steve. Yes,” he said over and over, promised, prayed; the other man heard; Steve wrapped his arms around Tony, buried his face in his neck and sped up, fucking him without mercy, driving Tony right to his limit. It was again too much, again not enough; beyond thought of resistance, Tony craved more, always more. When Steve’s control finally collapsed into raw frantic thrusts, Tony thrilled to match him, urging him on _yes yes like that Steve yes_ until his body succumbed to the inevitable trajectory and ignited the ecstatic supernova within, Tony tearing the air with his cries. Seconds later, Steve followed Tony over the edge, ragged voice naming him, hot pulsing jets filling him. It was not enough. It was too much. It was everything.

They clung to each other, messy sweaty bodies adrift in an infinite universe.

Tony opened his eyes to a beautiful world, Steve Rogers lying sideways beside him. Serene, golden. His. They looked at each other as their breaths slowed towards peace. Neither considered words to be necessary.

Neither could stop smiling.

Eventually, Steve made a move, scooping Tony up and sliding him under the blanket, his cooling skin finding this a welcome refuge from the slight chill of the night air. Once they were both settled and warm, Steve bent in to kiss Tony’s neck, his eyes, his lips. “So long,” he murmured, reverent against Tony’s skin. “I’ve loved you so long.”

“How long?” Tony asked, suddenly needing to understand. When Steve had known. How long he’d been waiting.

The other man paused, his face hidden in Tony’s hair. “Uh… when did we meet?”

Tony squinted at the ceiling, suspicious. “New York was six years ago. But six and a half for us, I guess.”

Steve’s sigh was strong enough to tickle. “Then I guess it’s been around six and a half years.”

“Um, _what_?” Tony demanded, pushing Steve away just enough so he could see his face. “ _Steve_. Please tell me you’re kidding.”

The other man tried to shrug. “In my defense, those first couple years, I didn’t really let myself think about it, just told myself we were work friends and nothing more. But after you retired, nothing felt right without you, until one day, I woke up and I just… knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony asked, honestly shocked.

“Because I also knew how that conversation would end,” Steve said softly, hunching a little further away. “Think about it, Tony. You and Pepper were good. You were so happy together. If I’d come to you back then and told you I had feelings for you, would you really have risked losing her?”

No, Tony thought. He would have picked her over anyone.

Back then.

“If I’d known, I could have done something, Steve,” he said instead. “At the very least, been less of a dick.”

Steve sighed again. “You would have been kind, Tony, I know. But I’ve seen how many people get pulled into your orbit, how often they end up wanting more than you can give. The burden of that… I see how it weighs on you. And I didn’t want to be someone you had to push away. So keeping my distance felt like I was keeping you close, in a weird way. As close as I could get, anyway. I don’t know. Does that make any sense?”

“Steve, I’m not going to argue with your reasons,” Tony said slowly. “I trust they were good. But I still wish I’d known. Honestly, for years I didn’t think you even liked me as a friend.”

Steve looked upset at that. “I always enjoyed your company, Tony. I’m sorry if it ever felt like I didn’t. I really… I just didn’t want to get too close.”

“Yeah well, mission accomplished,” Tony muttered darkly; immediately regretting the dig, he brushed his hand over Steve’s cheek in apology, and the other man pressed into the contact, leaning in with just a touch of desperation. Tony had the thought that maybe there’d been enough revelations spilled for one day, was in fact about to change the subject when another realization scattered his intentions. “Hold up… in Germany, right after I told you Pepper had left me… for a minute there it looked like you were really gonna sign the Accords.”

“For a minute there, I was,” Steve said, and his expression was the opposite of fireworks, misery sinking into itself. “I thought maybe, if you were single, if I came back… there might be a chance.”

“But Barnes needed you,” Tony finished, the sharp edges of that awful week finally sliding into coherent alignment. He’d always pinpointed that conversation as the moment his Avengers dream had died; there in that room, he’d tasted victory within his grasp, had come so close to keeping Steve with him, to keeping their misfit family intact. Steve’s sudden recoil had felt personal, but Tony had never quite understood what he’d done to provoke the turnaround.

“That, but also…” Steve took a shaky breath. “Sometimes if there’s a chance of getting what you want, it’s harder than living without it. I think, after so long… Running was just easier.”

“And then, Siberia,” Tony said, following this new configuration through to the end. The blank look on Steve’s face that Tony had read as detachment, the denial that Tony had heard as lies. The raw emotion in Steve’s eyes as he’d walked away, which Tony had spent years believing was his latent contempt for Tony, finally given the excuse to be unleashed.

“It was the worst moment of my life,” Steve confessed, looking away.

Tony found there were tears in his eyes. “Mine too.” And that was saying a lot.

“I should have told you right away,” the other man said, regret etched across his face.

“What stopped you?” Tony asked. Calmly. As if he’d hadn’t spent years having nightmares about this question and all its possible hellchild answers.

Steve took a breath, staring up at the ceiling as he gathered his thoughts. “Finding the Winter Soldier was Avengers business, but finding Bucky… That was for me. I didn’t want to stop, but I thought… I knew if I told you, you’d still help me look for him, but I thought, if you knew, watching me search for him might hurt you.” He shook his head, impatient. “Or, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe hurting you was out of my reach, maybe nothing I did would matter to you… I didn’t know which would be worse. So I didn’t want to find out. And I kept telling myself, there would be time to explain after I found him, after he was safe, until eventually I just stopped thinking about it. Then, when I saw the video… I knew from the start it was a mistake, that I was making everything worse by being such a coward, but that day, when you looked at me… that’s when I realized it was too late, that I’d already lost you.”

Tony stayed quiet, trying to focus on what Steve was actually saying, trying not to let his mind pick the words apart only to pour his own fears into the gaps. He’d spent the past two years blaming himself for their estrangement, as if he could have averted it by doing better, being better; as if Tony alone had possessed the power to shape the outcome. He was beginning to realize how distorted that belief was, how badly it had led him astray. Because on his own, he could never have solved this puzzle, would have instantly rejected any possibility that implied their fallout wasn’t all his own fault, but Steve’s explanation… It fit the facts so much better than anything Tony had come up with on its own. Perhaps too well, some dark part of him suspected. Perhaps it was too convenient, too neat an angle, the way Steve was shouldering so much of the responsibility; a great man yet again shielding Tony’s weakness at the cost of his own peace.

But, fuck, because there went his mind with the same old bullshit, trying to play the same old tricks. Setting himself up again as the lone judge and jury and defendant-executioner, hoarding blame as if it delivered control, because the familiar halls of self-recrimination provoked less existential terror than admitting that the best person he knew might have actually fucked up here, might have hurt him in ways that Tony hadn’t earned, had broken his heart without even trying, because if that was true, then regardless of how worthy Tony made himself, there could be no guarantees Steve wouldn’t do it again.

That truth was devastating, simple, and unfair in a way he loathed, because it meant they could both try, and try, and still they might fail.

Steve had turned his head and was watching Tony think, his expression tight. Tense. Waiting for the verdict, Tony thought. He took Steve’s hand in his, raised his knuckles to his lips. Devastating. Simple. True. But fuck it. “You have me now,” he said. At the very least, they would fail together.

The other man released his breath all in a rush, his body curling in towards Tony but still hesitant to touch. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, sweetheart,” Tony said, the endearment falling so easily, so naturally from his lips. “I mean, I’m also freaking out, because living happily ever after isn’t really my area of expertise and emotions are terrifying and I am me so it’s hard to shake the feeling that any relationship I’m involved in is a complete disaster waiting to happen, but… I love you, Steve. So. I’m all yours.”

“Good,” Steve whispered, eyes full, but still he managed to crack a smile. “Because I want all of you, Tony. Disaster or not. I want everything.”

“Fuck,” Tony announced, because what else was there to say, and he leaned in to crush the other man’s mouth against his own, Steve holding him close as if he would never let go. After that first surge, the kiss softened into something unhurried, slow and sweet; when they eventually broke apart, it was more out of the need to look at each other than to catch their breath.

“I really didn’t think we’d ever get here,” Steve murmured, his brow furrowed even as his fingers traced the shape of Tony’s eyes, his lips. “Even after Thanos, being your friend again… It felt like more than I deserved. I knew the real you would still hate me, so I figured it was hopeless.”

Truth was truth, even when it was hard. “I never hated you, Steve,” Tony said softly. “I tried. Believe me, I tried. And to be honest, I wish I’d succeeded, because not hating you kinda fucked me up. There’s always been this idiot schoolkid part of me that wants to worship you, that still thinks Captain America could never be wrong. So if Steve Rogers himself didn’t trust me, if you thought I wasn’t good enough to be your friend, then it had to be because I wasn’t worthy.”

Steve stared at him, blue eyes stunned. “But Tony, that’s just not true.”

Tony smirked, suddenly keen to lighten the mood. “Well duh, I know that _now_ ,” he said, and rolled over on top of Steve, tucking his body in tight. As close as he could get.

“No, Tony, listen to me, that’s the absolute opposite of true,” Steve was still trying to explain as Tony deployed strategic kisses along his jawline. “You _are_ worthy, you are good, so good, I’m the one who fucked up being your friend and you deserve so much better, you deserve everything, you… Tony, you’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

Unable to help it, Tony snorted a laugh into Steve’s neck. “Objection, libel, outrage, bias,” he said, then wriggled to one side so he could watch Steve’s face. Despite Tony’s joking tone, the other man seemed determined to stay upset; Tony planted a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth, hoping to soften the tension he found there.

“You’re just saying that because you love me,” he whispered, the idea still fragile, questions lurking behind the words.

Steve met his gaze, solemn, earnest. “Maybe I love you because it’s the truth,” he said. Unable to believe but unwilling to argue, Tony leaned in and kissed him, long and sweet, until Steve sighed against his lips, his body slackening as if he’d just run out of battery.

“Tony? What happens now?” the other man murmured, in that broken, wistful voice that Tony had secretly hoped to never hear again.

He pulled back to study Steve’s face. “What do you want to happen now?”

Steve shot him a sharp glance. “Don’t do that. I’m really asking.”

“So am I, Steve,” Tony said, earnest in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. Terrified in a way few battles had ever made him. He needed to do this right more than he needed to breathe. “I would like to hear what you want, for us, for yourself, anything. I would like for you to tell me what you want. In words. Whatever you want.”

The other man was avoiding his gaze. “I… What if I don’t know, Tony?” he asked, defeat and shame and something worse in his voice.

“That’s okay too,” Tony said, swallowing around a sudden lump in his throat. “We’ve already established no more fighting. That’s a start.”

Steve winced, seemed to retreat further into himself. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted out. “If I scared you, before.” Steve brought his hand up to the scar on Tony’s shoulder, traced its permanent reminder of the worst day of his life. “Or ever. I really didn’t mean to… I never wanted to…”

Tony took his hand, kissed his palm. “I know. I know, Steve.”

“Okay, so if there’s no more fighting…” Steve paused, frowned. Trying to give an answer, just because Tony had asked. This man. “I just don’t know what else there is to want. I think the problem is I don’t really want anything. Not in a way that matters. Nothing but you, of course. But that wouldn’t work, would it? Making my whole life revolve around you?”

“Flattering as the idea is to my ego,” Tony said gently, “no, Steve, I don’t think that would work. But you don’t need to rush to find your answers. The question’s not going anywhere. You have time.”

“Too much, really,” Steve muttered darkly. Of course. The serum.

“Not if I can help it,” Tony said. “I forgot to ask, did our sparky orange genie grant your wish?”

Steve looked a bit puzzled, but nodded. “The garden’s back to how it was, yeah. Bucky said Shuri and Peter were in there all day sciencing, trying to figure it out.”

“Yikes,” Tony sighed. “But that’s great news. Cracking Erskine’s formula won’t be easy, but having the original herb on hand should knock a few days off the job. You good with staying on in Wakanda for a bit?”

Steve was staring at him as if he’d never seen him before. “You- you want to…? But I thought you had plans, you know, clean energy, saving the universe?”

“The universe can suck it,” Tony said curtly. “My priority is you.” He swallowed, weirdly nervous. “It’s always gonna be you, Steve. So. Get used to it.”

But the other man was staring through him now, dead-eyed and trembling. “But Tony, what if…” Steve squeezed his eyes shut, his expression so pained that Tony embraced his bowed head. “I don’t want to ask,” the other man muttered against his shoulder. “It’s not fair.” And Tony did not like the sound of that at all.

He gently pulled Steve’s head up, waiting until the other man could meet his eyes. “Always ask, Steve. Please. Whatever you have to say, I promise I will always want to know.” No more hidden variables; no more isolated solutions.

Steve looked troubled but eventually nodded. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Tony, there’s just not much left… I don’t know if I can…” He shook his head. “What happens if it’s too late?”

“If what’s too late, sweetheart?” Tony asked; he knew but he needed to verify because that was the game now, but god, this wasn’t a game, this was Steve, this was _everything_ -

“The names,” Steve whispered. “At first it was just on the bad days, but now I think about them all the time. Except if there’s a fight, but… I need them. So much that I don’t know if I can stop. I’m not even sure I want to.” He blew out a shocked breath, turned his face away from his own words. “That’s… that’s awful. Right?”

“No, Steve,” Tony said, steady despite his pulse pounding in his ears. “It’s not awful. It’s sad, and I hate it, but it’s the truth. And please, trust me, this is exactly the kind of thing I want to know. That I want you to tell me, if you can.”

“I don’t want to go,” Steve said, meeting his eyes, urgent. “But I can’t promise I won’t.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “Okay.”

“I promise I’ll try,” Steve said. “Is that… can that be enough, Tony?”

“Yes, Steve,” Tony whispered. “That can be enough.” He swallowed, brimming with indecision. “On one condition.”

The other man looked close to tears, but he listened. “Okay,” he said.

Tony took a breath, because what he was about to ask wasn’t fair, was in fact unspeakably cruel, but he couldn’t solve what he couldn’t see; then he reached out and took Steve’s hand, weaving their fingers together, apology and vow. “Promise me that you won’t go alone.” Steve flinched, but Tony kept going. “Promise me that you won’t leave me behind.” The other man was shaking his head now in horrified refusal, but Tony had to keep going, had to ask, had to try. “Promise me that whatever happens, we face it together.” Steve’s grip had clenched tighter with every word he spoke, was now agonizing; Tony held on regardless.

“I- That’s not-” Steve gasped out, “Tony… _no_ , I can’t let you do that-”

“ _Steve_ ,” Tony breathed.

Whatever the other man heard in his voice, he instantly relaxed; next, his gaze searched Tony’s face, back and forth, up and down; what he found there Tony did not know, but by the time their eyes finally met, Steve’s expression had become soft, radiant. Beautiful. Without dropping his gaze, Steve raised their linked hands and pressed his lips to Tony’s knuckles, the only prayer Tony would ever need.

“Okay, then,” Steve said. “Together.”

Relief was a tsunami within him, a barrage of hope almost cruel in its intensity, but as Tony drew Steve’s hand to his own mouth and repeated their word against his skin, it was Steve who bowed his head and wept; this fragile lonely Steve, still trying even now to give Tony everything he asked for, still willing to give and give with everything he had left; so brave and strong; his Steve, always.

Tony held Steve close as he cried, soothing as Steve’s sobbing slid into laughter and back, the other man struggling to speak over his own tears. “I’m not even sad,” Steve choked out eventually. “I don’t know why I’m crying, I- it’s so stupid, I’m not sad, I’m not…” He managed to take a breath, looked up, tried to smile. “Really Tony, I think I… this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

So many ways for a heart to break; each the worst, until the next.

“So far,” Tony said.

 


	9. Integration

_integration_

/ɪntɪˈɡreɪʃ(ə)n/

NOUN

_1\. the action or process of successfully combining two or more things into an integral whole._

_2\. (in maths) the operation of finding the integral of a function or equation._

_3\. (in psychology) the process by which the different parts of an individual's personality organize towards harmony with their environment._

 

***

 

Hours pass.

They spend a lot of time in bed, sleeping, eating, fucking. Tony shows him quiet happy movies. Aladdin. Steve laughs. Tony laughs. It’s almost enough. The wizard comes to visit, leaves Tony shaking, slow. Apparently there was at least one other way. Steve holds him safe. Tony decides. No more fighting. He’s done.

Days pass.

After the rogue Avengers are pardoned, they visit New York. It’s not home, not anymore, but it’ll do. They pick 4th July to officially retire. The world goes on, oblivious. Steve is glad. Tony is glad.

Weeks pass.

They return to Wakanda, Tony, Bruce and Shuri working long hours to crack the formula. With T’Challa’s permission, Steve sits in the restored garden, peaceful amid the flowers. He watches the people work, summoning life and beauty from empty dirt. He wonders at their power, but they laugh and say life is born knowing how to live. So long as nothing gets in the way, time will do the rest.

Steve watches. Sometimes he sketches.

They sit him down. The best they can do. A series of treatments, a gradual purge. It’ll take years. He accepts. They return to the States. Malibu, better. Always warm. Tony asks; the sea. Steve answers; swims. He trains every day, stays ready to fight, just in case. And he sketches, and he reads, and he watches Tony work. He likes watching Tony work, summoning the future. Life and beauty.

Twice in that first year, he goes to Tony and says the words, just like he promised.

In October, Tony nods. He flies Steve there himself, follows him off the jet. Steve goes to climb and Tony goes to follow. Steve stops. Tony stops. It’s enough. Tony takes Steve’s hand and leads him home. Back by the sea, Steve asks. What if. Tony says he doesn’t know. Steve swims, trains, stays ready. Sam comes to stay. They go to the local VA. A hurt, angry man laughs hard at Captain America. Steve doesn’t go back. Sam finds him a kind face to talk to. Steve lies.

In February, he goes to Tony again. Partway up, Steve loses his temper. Screams at Tony to leave him, to go home. Tony stays, waits. It’s enough. Steve follows Tony home. A week later, Steve starts a garden. He plants seeds, makes sure nothing gets in their way. He waits. They bloom, color and life. Steve watches. He sees the kind face. He doesn’t lie. The second summer passes.

The second winter passes, and disaster strikes; Clint’s family. Nat calls, voice trembling. Kidnapped. They go. Steve fights, Tony rescues, and it’s not so bad, not until Steve gets home and the shaking starts. Tony holds him safe, and it’s not so bad. He wakes early and goes to the garden, digs his fingers into empty earth. Life will grow. Tony appears, shivering. California chill. Steve teases. Tony complains. They go back to bed.

It’s the third summer and the flowers are blooming. Once more disaster calls, and they answer. Steve comes home with a stab wound in his shoulder. It takes three days to heal. He watches. There’s a scar, and it’s beautiful. Tony agrees. Steve sketches. Steve paints. Colors, life. Summer passes.

Midway through the third winter, Steve finds a gray hair in his beard.

Early in the fourth summer, Tony spends an unavoidable week off-world with Nebula. Steve picks movies to fill the time. Not quiet, not happy. Tony wouldn’t approve, but Steve wants a challenge. War movies, fine. Dystopias, no problem. Then Lord of the Rings. He watches through his fingers. After, he digs up his garden, replants everything in different locations. Same lives, new arrangements. Mixed up. Jumbled. True. Tony comes home, and Steve is okay, and he stays okay for months. He’s doing fine. Sam returns, and they go back to the VA, where Steve listens. Different lives, jumbled, true. He comes home and sketches. He goes back and speaks.

In September Steve is still doing fine, is doing _great_ , is the thing, which is why neither of them are ready, the third time. Tony even laughs. But it’s true. They climb almost to the top. Tony hides his face behind the suit. Hiding his disappointment, Steve thinks. Tony lets Steve walk on ahead. Letting him go, Steve thinks. He stumbles, numb, and Tony catches him. He wonders whether Tony would carry him, if he asked. Then he has to sit, because he thinks, yes, Tony would. And that’s enough. He cries. Tony holds him close, lets him fall apart. Then Steve stands. Tony waits. It’s everything.

Steve takes Tony’s hand and leads him home.

 

***

 

Tony groaned and stretched his arms high above his head, the knotted muscles in his upper back twinging in protest. Sitting still was the worst. Fuck mornings too. He’d actually got enough sleep for once, had woken up early with about an hour’s worth of design tweaks for the orbital landing platforms freshly baked in his head, but the rest of the day had stretched easily before him, full of promise and serenity.

So naturally, instead, he’d had to spend an additional eight hours fielding panicked queries from jittery squad leads who apparently had skipped their Ready-Brek and now “just wanted to be sure” that one plus one still equaled two. Amateurs. You’d think they’d never built a space station before.

…okay, maybe he could forgive a few jitters.

“Friday, can you run that last update against the Norway projections, please?” Foster’s team were tasked with catching his errors and, yeah, it was a massive relief to know they were supervising, but last month’s space plumbing snafu had just been embarrassing. In hindsight, Tony supposed a toilet so powerful it also flushed its user ass-first into vacuum may count as “excessive force”. Darcy was still sending him Alien Resurrection gifs.

“On it, boss,” the AI answered. Tony took the opportunity to walk over to the wide window, admiring the summer sprawl of the ivy outside, his thoughts drifting towards the evening. A discreet chime brought his attention back into the room. “Incoming call from Peter Parker,” Friday announced.

Tony winced. He knew what this was about. “Accept audio, but on low volume,” he told the AI.

In his tiredness, Peter’s exhilarated babbling still felt like a slap on the ears. “OhmigodTony didyouseethis Ican’tbelieveit thisissocool-”

“Hey Pete, can you please take pity on an old man, not to mention dolphins everywhere, and slow the heck down,” Tony said, trying not to sound like a total grouch.

Without missing a beat, the kid slowed his words to something more befitting a stoned whale. “I s-a-i-d oh-my-g-o-d-To-n-yyy, d-i-d-youu…”

Brat. “Yeah yeah, okay,” Tony sighed. “I take it you got your mail.”

“Did you know he was doing this?” Peter asked, his voice bright with emotion.

“Total surprise,” Tony admitted. “He only showed me yesterday. Pretty cool stuff.”

“Pretty cool?” Peter spluttered. “Tony, Spider-Man is in a _comic book_. This might be the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ned says it’s _definitely_ the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Even MJ’s excited.”

“Really? What’d she say?” Tony asked, curious. Peter’s fiancée was notoriously hard to impress.

“That since pop culture narratives have the power to influence contemporary behavioral norms, incorporating marginalized perspectives within mainstream cultural institutions can help bridge the initial gaps of understanding within society’s collective consciousness around people who would otherwise be vulnerable to Othering, but it’s tough cos using narratives to leverage social change requires the creator to pursue storytelling goals that transcend corporate profiteering.”

“…huh,” Tony said.

“Yep,” Peter said.

“And is this particular creator… doing that?” Tony asked.

“She says he shows potential,” came the reply.

Tony grinned. Keeping up with MJ meant the kid’s life would never be boring, even outside of his Avengers duties. “I’ll pass on the compliment.”

“I called earlier but he didn’t pick up, can you tell him I’ll say thanks properly when I see him tomorrow?” Peter asked.

“Of course, kiddo,” Tony said. “You’re due in around two?”

“It might actually be after three, Aunt May’s on shift til nine, but we can get lunch for ourselves on the way if that’s easier?”

So polite, still. Tony rolled his eyes. “Belay that. Arrive ravenous, we’ll feed you.”

“Ok, cool, cool,” Peter said, sounding slightly distracted. “Oh hey so Ned’s back with, holy shhh- …a few more copies, uh, I gotta go but yeah see you tomorrow, bye!”

“Sayonara, Spiderama,” Tony said, but clearly Peter was _quite_ distracted because he forgot to end the call and Tony was treated to a few seconds of excited Ned vs bemused Peter arguing over ‘how many comic books were too many comic books when one was _in_ said comic books’ before he signaled Friday to hang up.

Out of nowhere, the AI played a perky RPG victory fanfare, and Tony sighed. Her snark phase was just going from strength to strength, and much as he’d like to blame Peter and Shuri’s pernicious gen Z influence, he remembered much the same thing happening with Jarvis. “Design adjustment within parameters,” Friday said, leaving Tony momentarily lost without context for her words. Then with a shiver, Tony remembered what he’d been doing before Peter’s call. What he’d been about to do. The shape of the day still to come, in all its glory.

“Okay, Fri, send it off, wrap everything up,” Tony said. “Then engage bunker mode for the next twelve hours. Anything short of an apocalypse, I don’t want to hear it. Some of us have important business to attend to.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Friday agreed. “Tell your business I said hi, and remember to hydrate.”

Already halfway out of the room, Tony spluttered a laugh. Forget snark, the AI was becoming a downright sass machine. “Will do.”

He followed the corridor to the kitchen, where there was no sign of any activity. Unusual, since it was approaching dinner time, but he could hear faint sounds of life further ahead. His stomach was keenly aware he’d skipped proper lunch - energy bars did not count as nutrition, he’d been thoroughly informed - so Tony scooped up an apple before he left. The sounds were coming from the sunny side of the house, in which case he knew exactly where they’d be.

 

***

 

Closing his eyes against the late afternoon glare, Steve sank back against the sofa cushions, letting his contentment wash over his limbs. Melty as a sun-baked cat, Tony had once described him in this state. Steve enjoyed living down to the description.

The soft thud of a mystery object against his skull interrupted his reverie; he only groaned a little, inwardly, before he opened his eyes, blinking against the light. The terrible twos were looming closer every day. But the twins were still occupied on the floor, busily trading building blocks towards the fort of the day.

Instead, Nat was grinning at him from a nearby armchair. “You looked like you were about to nap,” she said.

“If I needed a nap, I’d say so,” Steve grumbled as he retrieved the offending stuffed rabbit and lobbed it back at her, maybe harder than required.

The former Avenger caught it without even looking. “Don’t be cranky; it’s a common practice among senior citizens. Plus I know you have some big plans for later.”

He shot her a lascivious grin. “I sure do,” Steve said, dropping his voice low. “Wanna hear em?”

Nat burst out laughing. “God no, Steve. I’m just your babysitter, not your priest.”

Her self-deprecation was a perpetual annoyance, and Steve caught her gaze. “You know you’re much more than that,” he said earnestly, then smirked. “Auntie Nat.”

Nat stuck out her tongue at him, then refocused her attention on the twins, asking them to explain what they were doing, then joining them on the floor to inspect their work. Drawing a line through any further conversation.

He understood. Out of all the Avengers, only Bruce had known the full extent of what she’d gone through as a kid, the Red Room’s ‘graduation ceremony’ a hideous proof of how far they would go to own her future. Steve had sometimes wondered why Nat would have such a profound attachment to Clint’s family while continually shooting down any possibility of ever having her own, but through all the years of being her friend, he hadn’t asked and she hadn’t shared. Nat had gone on keeping her personal life intensely private, had thrown herself into her work leading the team after his and Tony’s retirement, right up until the day a passing medical scan had revealed the truth: her former tormentors had _lied_.

She’d quit the Avengers the very same day, declaring herself permanently retired with no explanation, and went no-contact for two whole years. Eventually, she’d sent Steve a Christmas card from the south of France. Her girlfriend ran a bakery, she said, and when they visited, she was happy. They’d sent her the invite without expectation, but Nat had returned for the wedding, gentle baker in tow. As a wedding gift, Nat had given them her story; why she’d disappeared, the emotional journey she’d been on to unravel the Red Room’s lies, her resolve to break their control and reclaim her future by refusing to live as anything of what they tried to make her. She had then offered to be their surrogate, should they ever need one; she knew now she didn’t want to be a mother, even if she had the option, but she wanted to do this much if she could. After an enormous amount of consideration, they’d accepted; two years later, the twins were born. Nat had promptly appointed herself best auntie in the world and insisted they fly her over to babysit whenever needed, yet she was careful to preserve a distance, too. Steve respected this, he really did, but within the privacy of his own mind, she would always be family.

He sank back on the sofa, still feeling warm and slouchy in the afternoon sunshine. He’d missed some paint under his nails, he noticed. With the hectic schedule around the new launch - providing Peter liked his appearance in Cap #50, providing he approved Spider-Man #01 tomorrow - Steve hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in weeks; certainly he hadn’t expected today to be the day, but Nat had insisted he grab a couple hours after lunch. In truth, Steve had been too busy daydreaming to accomplish much actual work. Mind floating on the thrill of his later plans, he’d let his body splash random bright colors onto a spare canvas, resulting in the exact kind of abstract nonsense he’d usually roll his eyes at and itch to paint over. But this one he thought might be a pleasant sort of nonsense. Who knows, he might even keep it.

Steve’s awareness had been building towards the evening all day, anticipation now tingling throughout his entire body, a languid expectation born of knowing exactly what was to come later. The tallest hill over the lake. Sunset on the water. He knew because they did much the same thing every year. Once, he’d believed that traditions belonged only to the past, weapons of the restless dead that linked rigid unforgiving claws into all that may be. Now, Steve saw them as beacons within an uncertain future, familiar landmarks meant to help the living negotiate a compassionate path between holding on and letting go; a contract eternally evolving, to be willingly renewed.

These days, he liked to build his own traditions, with a daily routine that ran from morning coffees to bedtime lullabies, and a calendar inked with birthdays and anniversaries. Even the tattooed ring on his finger, which this time had lasted a full seven months. Each experience was composed of mere moments, bubbles of perfection so fragile and rare he hardly dared blink, yet Steve had learned; time would bring more of everything if he let it. Hoarding the details meant holding on too hard to what was already gone, meant he was using his strength in the wrong direction, and sometimes even happiness could get in the way.

Instead, Steve tried to practice letting go, because he had learned that life couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Not even for him. It had to be messy, and glorious, and stupid; it was not a thing to be displayed safe and dead in a museum, admired only from afar. These days Steve knew the deepest beauty lay not in the art but the _artist_ , holy and free. Over time, Steve had found his own path to the wilderness; there he had found the artist waiting, impatient, beyond control, but somehow, miraculously, his; in that wild place, Steve had made his home, building deep roots amid the mysteries.

And when Steve looked up, there he was, leaning against the door-jamb, busily finishing an apple. Taking a moment to watch the twins play in the sun. Steve watched him right back, drinking in the sight. Dark eyes. Messy hair. Amused. Beautiful. Tony flicked his gaze over towards Steve, inscrutable thoughts quirking his lips upwards. All these years together, and Steve still ached to know more, learn more, keep everything he could of this man. He sat instead, waited. Knowing Tony would come to him, as he always did. Keeping faith that he always would.

Steve wasn’t perfect at believing. His faith had wavered, here and there, culminating in a real rough patch four years back. Shortly after visiting Nat and her baker in France, a bad nightmare had sunk itself into Steve and wouldn’t let go; he’d woken in sure, hideous panic that their shared use of the Infinity Gauntlet had somehow entangled their futures, magic twisting fate so that himself and Tony would inevitably end up together. Tony had made him breakfast, heard him out, then shrugged, “so?” After Steve had pointed out the numerous consent issues with predestined happiness, Tony had asked, simply, “then what would you like to change?” The question had flummoxed him, so Steve had taken a full week to think about it. He’d come back with a question of his own.

And a ring.

Sometimes happiness means getting out of your own way.

Tony set aside the apple core - composting was important - and moved further into the room, not so subtly making his presence known to the twins by engaging in their favorite Godzilla impression. His hammy shambling growls were met with the usual flurry of giggles and plushie-bomb attacks, aided a little too well by Nat. After they had successfully tackled Godzilla to the ground and were sitting on him, triumphant, Nat declared victory to the twins; graciously, they allowed Tony to sit up and catch his breath for a full ten seconds.

“Daddy, fly!” Sarah demanded, imperious as ever. Without skipping a beat, Tony stood, scooped her up and started spinning her around horizontally, now making zoomy airplane noises. James, a reserved child despite the keen Stark sparkle in his eyes, tugged on Nat’s sleeve and whispered in her ear. She nodded, then knelt so he could clamber onto her back, then the two took off chasing an equally squealing Tony and Sarah around the room, Steve on the couch a lone oasis amid the chaos.

He really shouldn’t be encouraging such behavior, could see in his mind a dozen ways it could all turn to horror, but Steve decided not to intervene. Instead, lying back in the golden light, he let himself savor the love stampeding like a wild thing through his home, this one jeweled moment within infinity.

It had been his turn to pack, this year, so Steve already knew that in the kitchen there was a picnic waiting. He also knew he would spend the rest of the evening relaxing with his husband before celebrating their rare night of peace together in a dozen beautiful sweaty ways. And tomorrow, he knew, he would share his work with his friends and surprise them with his spin-off ideas, hopefully gaining their approval before the party devolved too far into karaoke and mischief.

But for now, Steve was warm in the sun, and his family was happy.

And that was enough.

 

***

 

Flowers bloom across the sky, instant, then gone. The water reflects explosive colors, serene. Beauty, then nothing. Then beauty again.

On the hill, they sit, limbs comfortably tangled; their watch marks the passage of yet another day. Yet another year.

“Happy anniversary,” the futurist says.

The artist smiles.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, thanks for making it all the way through this fic! 
> 
> wow, it took much longer than i expected to put poor Steve back together, i had no idea his arc was gonna swoop so low when i started but there it went, zooming right off the graph paper. (if you really want a fun time, try watching LOTR with Sad Steve in your head, oh my GOD)
> 
> i'd love to hear any thoughts or critique you may have. i write for fun but i post shit in hopes of feedback, so no need to spare my feelings. i promise i will read and reflect on every comment, but i may choose not to reply if i don't trust myself to engage in good grace (still working on that thick writer skin, sorry!). 
> 
> i planned this fic as one unit, sorta like a movie, and as i finished it i went back and neatened up the earlier chapters, so the whole thing might be worth a re-read now that it's over. i may come back in a week and tweak the final two chapters but for now i'm sick of looking at them, lol. 
> 
> my next planned project will be much longer, kinda designed more like a tv show with seasons, kinda a super-queer Avengers rockband AU-but-not-really. idk. anyways it's called the DNR series, link in my profile, first teaser is already up and the first season is nearly ready to post, so if you want to follow that along, please feel free. 
> 
> have a great one, folks.

**Author's Note:**

> initially just a lil something i wrote up to pass the time until Endgame came out, whoop de whoop
> 
> then it grew legs and teeth of its own. 
> 
> tags have been updated accordingly, please take note 
> 
> (Endgame spoilers ok now, I think)


End file.
